


Prisoner of War

by plothound



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Armor, Armor Kink, Bathing/Washing, Body Horror, Bondage, Cannibalism, Cock & Ball Torture, Comfort, Consensual Sex, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Death, Edging, Gore, M/M, Naked Cuddling, Nightmares, Non-Consensual Bondage, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Post-Coital Cuddling, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape/Non-con Elements, Scorched Earth, Self-Harm, Starvation, Violence, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-02-08 16:56:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12868959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plothound/pseuds/plothound
Summary: The commander of a mercenary army takes a well-deserved break at the expense of a captive knight.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Rape, bondage, armor, edging, denial, brief post-orgasm torture.

Essock headed into the prison. The Ferstrewn Lions had accepted this fort's surrender only this morning, but the cells were already full of the enemy. He liked it that way. Many of the other Lions felt the same, of course, but the army was disproportionately composed of men who tended to visit female captives, so Essock felt confident that he would not be interrupted. 

 

Not that a risk of being interrupted would be enough to deter him from fucking someone into oblivion today. God, he was pent up. It would be poor form for a commander to take part of the same camp followers that the rest of the army did. Now, if there were more women in the army, there would be more men charging for sex in the baggage train. And Essock kept meaning to recruit more women, anyway. They tended to be a stabilizing influence on units, and there was less posturing and bragging among them. Usually quicker, too. Yes, the Lions needed more women. Perhaps in Andua they could recruit some, maybe even offer a signing bonus to them, though the rest of the army would complain. Or maybe in Gjaeross? That might be better, actually. Gjaeross's smithing guilds were famous for their spears, among other things, and Essock had noticed that women often used spears and shortspears to help improve their reach against larger opponents.

 

He put the line of thought out of his mind. It had been a long few weeks, and he was entitled to a break. He pushed open the iron-bound door and left the afternoon winter sun of the courtyard for the cold, damp stairway to the prison. It was long, but quite shallow. Essock suspected that the rock of the peninsula had turned out to be rather harder than the fort's builders had initially thought. Or perhaps they had simply wanted to ensure a supply of cells with natural light. Essock found that to be stupid, personally, but he wasn't about to turn down a fort.

 

When he opened the iron gate to the prison proper, he was greeted by a sullen silence interspersed with a few coughs, sneezes, pained moans, and quiet, rhythmic grunts, all of which he had expected, and an occasional sound of metal on metal, which he had not. The man on watch got up from his three-legged stool hurriedly and bowed, his armor glinting in the light of a candle. “Commander!"

 

“Soldier,” Essock said. “What's that noise?”

 

“One of the knights, sir,” the guard said. “He's still trying to bend the bars.” He shook his head.

 

“Still?” Essock said in disbelief. “It's been hours.”

 

“I know, sir,” the guard said. “I'm hoping he'll pass out soon.”

 

“Which way is he?”

 

“Just down this way, sir,” the guard said, making for the hallway that lead into darkness.

 

“I'm sure I can find him myself, soldier,” Essock said. He lit a lantern from the guard's candle and headed deeper into the prison, where the air grew colder and the smell of damp and mold and old blood grew stronger. He passed a cell that held an armored man fucking a captive woman whose chain leggings and padded trousers had been yanked down. The man, having bound the woman securely, was clearly enjoying himself, and the woman was gnawing at the rope binding her wrists to a ring in the wall. Rape of prisoners was common now, much more common than it had been in the past, but prisoners were still entitled to resist all they liked. Essock passed by without comment. If the woman got free and killed her captor, he'd offer her a contract with the Lions.

 

Eventually he came to the source of the noise. It was a knight, still in full armor, straining at his cell door, gauntleted fingers jammed between the door and its frame, trying to spread it apart and break the latch. Whenever he let up to take a rest, the door creaked back into place. The prison was old and wet, but it was perfectly clear that it would be another few centuries before it would be possible for a human to break out that way.

 

Essock watched for another few efforts. The knight made no noise beyond his labored breathing, and gave no indication that he had noticed the presence of candlelight and the commander of the Ferstrewn Lions.

 

“What's your name?” Essock asked.

 

“Sir Aiken of Whitcrane,” the knight grunted, never ceasing.

 

“I'd like to speak with you.”

 

“At your service.”

 

“Privately.”

 

Aiken finally paused. He did not release his grip, and Essock saw that he was trembling. “As you like.”

 

Essock drew the prison key from his belt and unlocked the cell. He was perfectly confident in his ability to beat Aiken to death through his armor before the captive knight landed a single blow, but he readied himself mentally anyway before opening the door. 

 

Aiken fell. Essock made no attempt to catch him, and waited a few seconds to make his point before clasping his plated arm and pulling him to his feet. The knight's legs shuddered violently, but he remained standing. Essock strode forward, listening carefully for the sound of booted feet following him. It came, slowly and unsteadily, and he lessened his pace.

 

He took the knight to an interrogation room. One of the benefits of being a commander was not having to do your fucking in a cell. You could upgrade to a private space, albeit one that was quite as cold and damp and dark as the rest of the prison.

 

He set the lantern down on the ancient wooden table, next to a variety of nefarious-looking implements, and closed the door behind them. Then he turned to face Aiken, and spent some time simply taking him in. He was a big man, and powerful, though not as tall as Essock himself. His armor was neither particularly fine nor noticeably shabby, though it had clearly taken quite a few hits in its time. His legs were still shaking, and he seemed to be trying not to move too much. His arms hardly moved at all, and he was a little hunched, favoring his shoulders and back. His day of pointless effort had taken a toll.

 

Essock stripped him of his cuirass and pauldrons efficiently. He did it to himself every day, and he'd done it more times than he could count to injured men on the field. And, yes, enough times to captives that he was familiar with how they usually reacted.

 

Aiken's reactions were dampened by exhaustion. That much was immediately obvious. Yet he still tensed as Essock unbuckled his gambeson and removed his shirt, leaving him bare to the waist, exposing a well-muscled torso with a few scars and a number of bruises blooming dark on the skin. Essock left the helmet on. He had no interest in knowing what the knight looked like beneath it. 

 

Then it was time for the cuisses, and the greaves, and then pulling down the chain leggings, and then the chausses. Essock took some time to admire the sight. He didn't consider himself a man of aesthetic sensibilities, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he had always had a thorough appreciation for the male form. If God was real, He had done a spectacular job on men. Women were decent enough—Essock could appreciate the curves of a woman's hips, the gentle swell of her breasts, the fall of her hair, the heat and slick wetness of her parts, and he fucked his wife, as was his duty—but they weren't men.

 

And, Essock had to admit, most men were not Aiken. He felt himself stir in his breeches as he took in the knight's body. He looked for things he didn't like, and was surprised to find absolutely none. Every curl of hair, every freckle, every curve of muscle and fat, even the scars and bruises... they all worked to improve the man's appearance rather than detract from it. As far as Essock could tell, Aiken was flawless.

 

It surprised him. He had seen thousands of men in his life, and he had found himself growing less excited about them, especially in recent years. Men were beautiful, but their flesh was cheap. They died by the dozens and hundreds and thousands in battle, and there were always more to replace them. Strip the armor from the dead and give it to the living, and armies were replenished. Essock found less and less savor in them as the wars dragged on. What point was there in enjoying them when they would die and have their place taken by another like them?

 

But Aiken was different. Essock felt a little thrill run through him as he contemplated removing the knight's breeches. What did he look like underneath them?

 

“Don't know what you hope to get out of torture,” Aiken said, interrupting his thoughts. “Surely you have what information you need.”

 

“I'm not going to torture you,” Essock said. “Not with steel and fire, anyway.”

 

Aiken looked at him for a moment, his helm blank steel. Then he sagged a little. “Oh.”

 

“You can enjoy it, if you like.” Essock unlaced his own breeches. “I don't particularly mind either way.” He stepped up and put his hands around Aiken's waist. He had large hands, and he enjoyed the look of his rough gauntlets against fragile skin. They looked strong, overpowering. He squeezed a little, just to see the give of flesh beneath his armored fingers, the movement of the skin, the tensing of the muscles. It was  _ beautiful. _

 

He ran his hands over the knight's body. He worked his way up his sides, past his ribs, and then onto his chest, allowing his fingers to pass over his nipples as they squeezed and pressed and stroked. Then it was his shoulders, broad and powerful, with a pale, faded scar on the right-hand one, and then his arms, tanned and marked from the sun, and then his stomach, pleasantly firm. Then he ran his hands around to his back, and pulled him a little closer. He let his hands climb up and down Aiken's back, and allowed himself to close his eyes briefly and revel in the sensation. Then, finally, he slid down and squeezed the knight's ass through his breeches. It was a delight, and he looked forward to seeing it uncovered. Oh, God, he could just dig his fingers in. It was glorious.

 

Essock unlaced the knight's breeches and slid them down. Aiken did not step out of them. He seemed to be largely occupied with pretending that it wasn't happening. Essock didn't mind that. He found himself just happy that he got to look at the man's cock. It was not notably large, certainly not as large as his own, but it was pleasing of form, and he couldn't stop himself from cupping the man's balls, which had a delightful heft, and then taking it in hand. He gave a few slow strokes, and was surprised when Aiken shuddered and gave a low moan.

 

Actually, he was surprised enough that he stopped and looked up, half expecting to see a knife in the knight's hand, but there was nothing. He stroked again, watching the knight carefully, and again there was a soft moan and a movement that would have been more appropriate in a man spilling his seed.

 

“You all right?” he asked. The noise had definitely sounded like pleasure, but he supposed that it could be pain.

 

“No,” the knight whispered. His voice was weak and breathless, and Essock felt a jump in his groin. The man had strained at an iron door for hours without complaint, and now Essock had brought forth this reaction with almost no effort. It was oddly thrilling. “No. I took a vow.”

 

“Oh,” Essock said in surprise. Vows of chastity were no longer common, had not been for quite some time. The people who did still take them were largely monks and nuns. Well, that explained the sensitivity. “You've touched yourself before, though?”

 

“No,” Aiken breathed. His hips moved just a little against Essock's hand, a ghost of a thrust. “Oh, God.”

 

Essock's cock twitched. Not only was he in possession of a magnificent man, but that magnificent man was deeply affected by him. Already Aiken's cock was hard in his hand, his breathing unsteady. He let himself stroke the knight's cock a few more times, and felt another pulse of lust in his lower belly when the man moaned again. 

 

He pushed Aiken back against the table, overcome by a sudden drive to force himself into that exquisite ass immediately. He pressed his groin against the knight's. The feel of glorious heat against him was overpowering, as was the tensing and nervous shifting of the knight, and the way his shoulders came forward a little in preparation, but not nearly as much so as the way Aiken's breathing increased, his chest rising and falling, sweat from his earlier exertions catching the candlelight. It could have been fear or lust, and Essock found that, whichever it was, it made his belly twinge and heart beat faster. 

 

He ground against Aiken. He squeezed the man's waist again, reveling in the give of flesh beneath his hands and in the shaky moan that issued from under the helmet. The friction against his cock was delicious. He shifted his hands down to Aiken's remarkably pleasant ass and pulled him closer. He pushed his visor into the man's neck and breathed deeply into the thick layers of fabric and steel that protected the body there. As he did so, he pulled the man hard against him, pressing him into his armor. He heard a sharp intake of breath as naked skin touched cold steel. The sound seemed to resonate through every nerve bundle in his body.  _ God. _

 

Essock pushed the knight's legs apart on instinct. His cock urged him to flip Aiken over and fuck him until he screamed, but he tamped down the urge. He probably wouldn't have the opportunity for a break like this again for some weeks, and he wasn't going to let himself finish inside of five minutes like that. No, he was going to enjoy every second of this to the fullest.

 

Aiken was clearly trying hard to temper his reactions, but it wasn't working very well. He had collected himself a little since his initial outbursts, but as Essock's attentions intensified, he was beginning to lose control again. He was taking deep, shaky breaths. Fresh sweat was beading on his skin. The skin of his chest and stomach, rarely exposed to the light, was noticeably flushed. Whenever his ass was squeezed firmly enough, he would make a delightful little involuntary sound that went straight to Essock's cock. When his hips finally thrust up with a desperate groan, seeking more stimulation despite himself, Essock gave up.

 

He pushed Aiken backward, slamming his back down against the table, and lifted his hips to position him better. He pressed himself up against the knight's ass and began to work himself in.

 

“Oh, God,” Aiken panted. “Oh, God. Oh, God. No. No, I can't, I made a  _ vow.” _ His hands clasped and unclasped, and his body writhed against the thick, dark wood of the table, but he made no attempt to escape, which delighted Essock entirely more than he was prepared for. “Oh, God!”

 

Essock drove further in. The knight was ferociously tight, clearly as virgin as Mary, and he was shuddering and moaning as he was stretched. Essock had never taken an inordinate amount of pride in his cock—after all, it was his skill at arms and at war which had seen him rise to commander—but it was bliss to see and hear a dubbed holy knight falling apart around it. 

 

“God. God. Oh, God, that's enough, that's enough, you're not going to fit any more.”

 

Essock couldn't help himself. He loosed a deep, throaty chuckle and leaned down closer to the knight to run a thumb over a nipple and make the knight tremble. Then he gave a quick snap of his hips. The head of his cock finally popped in, and Aiken convulsed. “There's a good bit more to go yet.” He could hear the grin in his own voice. He didn't typically speak to the prisoners he fucked, but this one was too delightful to pass up the opportunity. He leaned in close, letting his armor press into the knight's bare torso. “That's just the head, stripling.”

 

Aiken's answering moan, full of horror and a touch of what could only be anticipation, was thrilling, but not as thrilling as the near-howl that came afterward, when Essock thrust hard and managed to get himself a couple inches deeper. "God!  _ God! _ Please, stop!"

 

Essock didn't bother answering that. He began working himself back and forth, trying to go deeper. God, the knight was tight. He felt hands shove at his breastplate, but they were weak, and he ignored them as he might have ignored an insect. After a while, he gave up on actively trying to fit himself entirely inside and gave himself over to mindless thrusting, letting his head massage the knight's insides, his cock pleasure itself, his breath come deep and harsh. He closed his eyes and bent closer to the knight again. The sweet pressure around his cock and the knight's moaning and begging were driving him wild. Oh, it had really been too long, he wasn't going to last.

 

He gave a particularly hard thrust and finally felt himself sink all the way in. He straightened up and did his best to hold himself there, trying to cool down a little, but it left him panting and shuddering. He counted breaths soundlessly behind his helm, forcing himself to remain still until he felt confident that he would not spill himself immediately if he began moving again. Then he glanced down at the knight.

 

Aiken was lying back on the table, breathing deeply. As Essock watched, his hips canted up a little, and his back arched off the table. A low, wordless moan escaped him. His cock was standing firmly at attention. Clear liquid dripped from the tip. “Oh, God,” he whispered. “Please. Please don't. My vows. I must not sow my seed.”

 

“Is that all?” Essock said, amused. He moved a little, and savored the shudder he produced. “It's all right for you to have a cock in you, then?”

 

“As long as I take no pleasure.” 

 

He thumbed the knight's nipple again, and watched his cock twitch and a drop of fluid slide down it. “I'd say you're enjoying it pretty well.”

 

“No,” Aiken croaked. “No. I haven't…”

 

Essock had never considered himself a cruel man. He did what had to be done, and was kind when it carried no substantial risk. That attitude usually carried over to fucking. He would hammer into a captive until he spent himself, and then leave. The pleasure of the one he fucked made no matter to him. But there was something about this one that made things different. 

 

He leaned in close again, trapping the knight's cock between his armored stomach and the knight's bare one. “You'll break your vows today. And you'll beg me to break them for you before you do.” 

 

He reached past the knight's shoulders and picked up a loop of thick iron chain from the table. He hefted it in one hand. It felt solid enough, and heavy. He looped it through a ring on the wall and bound the knight's hands with it—loosely enough to avoid pinching the skin, despite himself. 

 

Aiken moaned beneath him as he shifted inside of him. Then he tugged at the chains, and went tense. “You said you'd not use steel, nor fire.”

 

Essock grinned. “It's black iron, stripling.” He gripped the knight's thigh and lifted it. He grunted a little as the movement shifted the pressure on his cock, but the knight's noise was louder. "And it'll only hurt you if you fight it." He put a gauntleted hand on the knight's chest and let his fingers roam as they pleased as he situated himself comfortably, enjoying the little noises and changes in breathing he heard from the knight as he did so. 

 

He withdrew, slowly, slowly. He let Aiken feel every bit of his cock as he let his hips take him back, all the way to the rim of the head. Then he pushed himself back in, just as slowly. Then out. Then in. He kept up the rhythm while the knight moved beneath him, trying not to react too strongly. He kept up his exploration of the man's torso while he was at it, as well. 

 

He was becoming quite familiar with that landscape, from the firmness of the well-formed chest to the line of hair that led down his stomach to his cock, to the gentle bulge of muscle at his hips, to the exquisite peaks of sensitivity that were his nipples. He was sensitive on the bit of stomach below his navel, especially to a single finger drawn back and forth down the center of that space. He was also, Essock discovered, prone to soft gasps if his collarbones were stroked from the center outward, information that the commander made thorough use of.

 

Eventually, he picked up the pace. Not by much, but enough to change both his breathing and Aiken's, and enough to make his fingering of the knight's sensitive places a little more insistent. His cock was, of course, begging him to throw all else to the wind and pound away as fast as he could until he came, but he found it fairly easy to ignore with the goal of breaking down the knight before then in mind.

 

That goal was beginning to look like it would be more easily achieved than he had expected, judging by the way the knight was groaning and writhing under him, but that didn't dampen Essock's enthusiasm in the slightest. It still delighted him to hear this knight, strong enough of body to survive the taking of a fort, strong enough of will to be dubbed a holy knight, and strong enough of both to spend a day attempting to bend the bars of a prison, reduced to lewd moans with comparatively little effort. 

 

By the time he'd worked himself up to a good speed, hard and fast, the knight's moans were long and drawn-out, and unable to be perceived as anything other than sexual. Many of his earlier vocalizations could have been either pleasure or pain, and had possibly been both, but now Aiken was most definitely finding pleasure in the experience. Essock was beginning to tire, and he felt that it was time to take things to the next level.

 

He released Aiken's thigh and used that hand to begin jacking his cock, still hard and dripping. The knight gasped and shuddered. His hips quickly began to follow Essock's hand. Then, suddenly, they stilled. “No!” Aiken gasped. “No!  _ No, _ please, my  _ vows. _ I must not. Oh, God.”

 

Essock let his thumb toy with the knight's piss slit. He was sure the leather made it uncomfortable, but the knight reacted beautifully anyway, stiffening and pressing his cock hard into Essock's hand before forcing his hips back to the table. Essock kept going. He worked the knight's foreskin up and down, and played with the sensitive head, and occasionally simply stroked away. He kept the knight as worked up as he could without letting him spill himself. 

 

He had to slacken his pace considerably eventually. His muscles were quite sore from the sustained effort of hammering the knight's deliciously tight hole, and benefited greatly from slowing down. This also benefited the efforts of his hands, he found, allowing him greater control. He was able to discover, for instance, that rubbing in tiny circles on the tip of the knight's cock with his thumb while rubbing a nipple was an incredibly potent combination. It couldn't be kept up for long periods, or Aiken would tip far too close to coming, but it could be wielded suddenly as a surprise, or done slowly enough to make him whine.

 

And he did whine. At some point, the noises he made had changed again, becoming less lusty and more desperate. He begged somewhat, as well, but for the wrong things. “Please, no,” he would groan, and Essock would hope, but then he would say, “Please, my vows. My vows, I must not break my vows,” and it would continue.

 

It took far longer than Essock expected, but that made it all the sweeter when at last it happened.

 

Aiken had been nearly quiet for some time, only the occasional moan. Then he began to pant as Essock drew him near, very near to spilling, and then when he was drawn back from the edge, he let out a loud groan.  _ “God!” _

 

_ That sounded different,  _ Essock noted. Was this it at last? He eased off more, simply left his hand at rest, squeezed around Aiken's cock, and the knight shook and let out a long, low keen. He strained at the chain, his entire body flexing to pull at his binds. That went on until he collapsed, trembling, back against the table. “Do it, then.”

 

“Do what?” Essock asked, leaning forward a little. He ran a hand over the knight's nipples.

 

“God's fucking blood!” Aiken spat. “Break my vows. Just finish it. Please.”

 

Essock considered. He toyed with the cock in his hand a little, drawing another loud moan from its owner. “Are you certain? Your vows seemed very important to you.”

 

“They are, you mercenary bastard,” the knight hissed. “But—” Essock thumbed his piss slit. “God! God, just do it, please, fuck, do it now!”

 

“Do what, exactly?” Essock asked again. He heard the laughter in his own voice, and he was mildly disappointed in himself, but it was worth it to hear the knight nearly scream in frustration.

 

“Finish me! Please!”

 

“How?” Essock cupped his balls. “How would you like to break your vow, stripling?”

 

Aiken writhed against the table. “I don't care! Just finish it!”

 

Essock looked down at him for a time, playing idly with his balls. “I suppose,” he said at length. “But I'll finish myself first.” _ At long fucking last. _ He slammed himself in deep, hard, and began fucking, fast. God, he was ready to blow, he'd been ready to blow for... however long it had been. He lost himself in Aiken's ass. He leaned over the restrained knight, a plate-covered arm on the wood of the table, and started in with quick, shallow thrusts, the kind that he knew would drag him quickly over the edge.

 

Then Aiken stiffened. His shoulders came off of the table, and he thrust upward, hard. The first noise he made was a broken cry, and the next was a long, low moan that shuddered and jarred until it ended. 

 

The sound utterly undid Essock, and he spilled himself with a deep groan inside the knight. He stayed there, inside, exhausted, for a time, letting his breathing return to normal, before he pulled out unceremoniously. He looked down at the knight. Aiken had clearly come quite explosively, judging by the amount of fluid on his stomach. His cock was soft. Essock couldn't resist the urge to reach down and play with its more sensitive spots for a few seconds, just long enough to make Aiken give a rather undignified cry and try to yank himself away. Then he put a hand on the knight's chest and leaned in.

 

“You did very well, stripling,” he breathed, letting his voice be the rumbling growl that it had a tendency to turn into in the bedroom. “I'm impressed. We might have to try this again sometime.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a really quick thing I did over the past couple of days, because I've apparently somehow never written anything that scratches this particular itch, which is odd because it's one of my big ones, if not The Big One. Probably a one-off, but I have a tendency to check back in with one-off characters and see how they're doing, so you never know.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some time after Essock's first time with Aiken of Whitcrane, trouble develops. This is like 90% angst, though there is a teeny bit of smut at the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rape, CBT, self-harm, comfort/care, angst, oral sex.

Essock had fallen into a habit. He disliked habits on principle. They were predictable, and predictability was a weakness. Some could not be avoided—meals, scheduled for the entire army, remained a source of minor anxiety for him, which he would have dismissed as paranoia had he not seen four separate prior commanders killed at dinner, one by poison, two by stabbing, and one who had memorably been drowned in his soup—but most daily tasks were easily scattered throughout the day. He took a different route along the fort’s perimeter each day, met his officers in a different order each morning, and even took care to relieve himself in different garderobes. The Ferstrewn Lions had a long history of frequent and violent changes in leadership, especially in recent decades, and Essock intended to change the pattern.

 

But he had developed a habit regardless, and it annoyed him. He went to visit the knight from Whitcrane nearly every evening, and had he been a conspirator with designs upon the Lions, that was when he would have struck. What better time to kill a man when he was balls-deep in a moaning captive, or what better time to orchestrate a coup than when the commander was predictably occupied for the better part of an hour?

 

And his sessions with Aiken typically did last that long. With previous opportunities, he had been accustomed to fucking hard and fast, spilling himself quickly and leaving as soon as he did, but the knight was temptation in earthly form. Nothing had ever piqued Essock’s interests abed as did the shamed knight, and he was unsure as to why. It wasn’t the fact that Aiken was unwilling—Essock had yet to fuck a man who had wanted it, the way some whores were said to. Nor was it that he had been a virgin. Such things did not thrill him, and it had now been some time since the knight’s maidenhead was taken.

 

It could have been the chastity, he supposed. That certainly added intrigue. It was quite the change to have a man beg _not_ to come. Or perhaps it was the gorgeously sensitive nipples; they were an easy way to drive Aiken mad with lust. Perhaps the quality of his moans, deep and throaty, perhaps his utterly fuckable ass, perhaps the easy flow of the muscles across his body, perhaps the way his cock dripped when Essock hit him at just the right angle—

 

He was hard before he reached the cell.

 

Aiken was lying on a goat hide in a corner of the cell. The animal’s skin couldn’t have done much against the stone floor, and it smelled rank, but it was something. The knight had given up his efforts to escape after Essock’s first visit. Essock didn’t know what a man did in prison all day, and was not anxious to find out.

 

He opened the creaking door and stepped in, mentally preparing for a fight, as always. Then he noticed that Aiken was not wearing his armor. That was out of character. The knight insisted on putting his armor back on each night, even sleeping in it, as if hoping that it would protect him from Essock’s advances. Yet here he was, lying curled in a corner, free of most of his armor. His greaves were still on, which Essock supposed was a good sign, and his helmet remained in place, but the rest was gone. He spotted it laid out neatly along a wall, obviously deliberately removed and placed. But why?

 

There was unease in his gut. He had never been one to ignore his gut, and he paid attention now, setting down his lantern and drawing his dagger. If Aiken was going to try and kill him, he’d had a job of it.

 

He crouched next to the knight and put a hand on his shoulder to turn him over. The knight winced at his touch, and Essock saw that he was gripping his hands tightly in front of his chest, almost as if in prayer. Essock pulled to try and get him on his back, and Aiken jerked violently with a short, sharp sound of terrible pain, drawing his knees closer to his chest.

 

“Stripling?” Essock said in surprise. He ran his free hand down the knight’s shoulders, chest, and belly, looking for injuries, and found none. When he brushed down the thigh, there was a tremble, and he looked closer. He saw that the lacing of the knight’s breeches was missing. That was odd. Then he parted the opening on a vague suspicion, flinched, and felt a horrible rage begin to boil up in him. He flipped the knight on his back to see better, trying not to let the accompanying cry cloud his thought overmuch. “Stripling,” he hissed, sliding the breeches out of the way and preparing his dagger, “who did this to you? _Who?”_

 

The cord that had kept the knight’s breeches shut was bound haphazardly but tightly around his cock, weaving back and forth down the entire length, digging into the flesh. The exposed skin was dark, cock flaccid but swollen, bulging between its confines, and his balls were in a similar state, divorced from the body and from each other by the cord.

 

Without waiting for an answer, Essock sought the knot holding the whole mess together, which had to be on the underside somewhere. Aiken grabbed at him, trying to keep the dagger away, understandably. “I’ll get it off you, stripling,” Essock snapped, pushing his hands away. “I’m handy with a blade.”

 

_“No!”_ Aiken snarled. His voice was hoarse and broken, but full of wild anger and desperation. “Get _off!_ You’ll not break my vows again.”

 

Essock stared blankly at him. “Stripling,” he said after a long pause, broken only by the knight’s harsh breathing, shaky and full of pain. “God’s fucking blood, did you do this to _yourself?”_

 

“I’ve sinned,” Aiken hissed at him. “I’ll not do it again, not befoul myself—”

 

Essock recovered enough from his shock to ram an armored elbow into an unarmored gut. While Aiken wheezed, he skillfully caught a line of cord with the point of the dagger and slashed through it. He winced at the sight as he pulled up, constricting the man’s cock even further before the cord gave way. It was short work to undo the rest of it, though the knight was beginning to get himself back at the end of it.

 

The cord left dark embossed lines that looked agonizing, and as blood began to flow freely again, Aiken shifted and moaned, obviously in pain. His hands clenched tightly enough for blood to leak from between his fingers, his head moved from side to side, and his body shifted and clenched in a sick parody of pleasure.

 

“No,” the knight whispered. His voice was choked and raspy. “Why’d you…”

 

“Stripling, if you can piss tomorrow, thank me,” Essock spat. He gripped the knight’s thigh. He felt a conflicting desire to beat the man and comfort him. Neither would be a good idea, he suspected. “Christ. _Why?”_

 

“I made a vow,” came the cold response. Aiken rested his head against the goat hide. “I made a vow.” A groan escaped him, and Essock felt a twinge of sympathy that irritated him deeply.

 

“Oh, that so? And was it worth it? I’d’ve believed you a Nordling heathen before I believed you fool enough for this.”

 

“I’ve _sinned.”_ His voice was breaking. “God forgive me, I’ve spilled my seed, as I swore not to, over and over, and not in a woman, nor even by my own hand, but…” He shuddered. “By another man’s cock, inside me. It’d be better had I lain with a goat. God damn you, you faithless bastard.”

 

“Stripling,” Essock said, shaking his head. He was disgusted at the pity in his voice. _Damn me for a fool._ “Stripling, it’s no sin, and if it were, it’s on my head, not yours.”

 

“No sin?” the knight said, incredulous. _“No sin?_ I made a vow! I swore to God to never spill myself, to conserve my potency for Him, and I’ve broken my vow in the foulest of ways.”

 

“It’s not _foul,”_ Essock said irritably. “And as I said, boy, it wasn’t your choice.”

 

“I begged you for it!” Aiken exploded, lurching to a sitting position. He promptly convulsed with pain and collapsed back down to the floor. When he had recovered somewhat, he spoke again, halfheartedly. “I begged you. I told you to break my vow. God, for lust. So many times.” He shook his head. He was quiet now, resigned. “Better to be unable to break it again. Better to be free of choice, to be bound by cord when my will is not enough.”

 

_“Stripling,”_ Essock breathed. He touched the knight’s shoulder on instinct. “Christ on the cross, boy.” He sat down. “Christ on the cross. You’re a true believer, aren’t you?”

 

“My faith will not be shaken.” His body was shaking, though. “Take me all you want, you animal. I’ll make my penance when I’m free of this place. Father Augustine will give me lashes, perhaps a vigil. Perhaps I must renounce my sword, renounce my knighthood.” He was silent for a while before he began to shake with near-suppressed tears. “God,” he whispered. He sounded tortured. “God, what purpose in it? There’s nothing on this earth that’ll cleanse me of you.”

 

Essock had not been particularly aware of his heart until that moment. It seemed to him that he had a sudden pain there, and he nearly grabbed at his chest before he realized that it was not of the body. When that happened, he nearly turned around and bashed his head into the wall of the cell. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He cared. Why on God’s green earth did he have to care? Why this knight, why now, why ever? He had a mercenary enterprise to run. He had absolutely no time to give a fuck about anyone but his wife— _I do care about her, I do—_ and especially not a religious knight who’d taken a vow most couldn’t keep, and cared enough about it to nearly take off his own cock.

 

He lifted Aiken’s torso from the goat hide and held him close.

 

For a few long seconds, the knight was stiff and unmoving. Then he wrapped an arm around Essock’s back and pressed himself close. The only thing that alerted Essock to his crying was his shaky breathing and occasional sniff.

 

“You’re all right, stripling,” Essock whispered. “You’re all right. No fear, now, no fear. Easy, stripling.”

 

It was a long time later when Aiken shifted in his arms. Essock, whose thoughts had been drifting, snapped back to attention. The knight sighed. “The pain is less.”

 

“Good.” Essock was unsure of what else to say.

 

“I am lost,” Aiken said after another pause. “It will be more than mere lashes Father Augustine gives me. Oathbreaking… the penalty is setting aside the sword, cleansing oneself with servitude. For some, only a year or two, depending on the nature of the oath. But my sin is greater. I swore to God Himself.” His fingers gripped Essock’s back more tightly, squeezing between his cuirass and pauldron under his arm. “I will sweep and cook for the abbey for years, while the warlords and mercenary hordes burn villages.”

 

“You need not,” Essock said softly. “Why do this penance? If you do the world more good as a man with a sword, be a man with a sword.”

 

“I have offended God. If I do not appease Him, my soul will burn.”

 

“Is it not the worse sin to not help those in need? What good do you do the world with a broom or ladle in hand? You’re more than that, stripling.”

 

“Vanity,” Aiken muttered. “You reek of sin, mercenary.”

 

“I do what I must. Lord Vaneron’s a decent man, and he pays well. The Lions stay fed, and those under his rule prosper. He’s good with a blade, but he’s got a head for management as well. I believe he’ll bring peace. To this corner of the world, anyway.”

 

The knight was silent for a long while. Then he said, “It would be noble, surely, to let my own soul go to Hell, if I could spare others pain. To bear the flames until Judgement, that others may live.”

 

“Stripling…” Essock said uneasily.

 

“I will,” Aiken said. “When I leave this place, I will not return to the abbey. I will take to the road. A knight-errant. I will defend the weak. I will not allow evil to spread. My part will be small, but if I may aid others, I will.”

 

Essock found that he had nothing to say. The idea made him uncomfortable, and it sounded like a sure death. A noble goal, to be sure, but one quickly ended by a bandit’s knife or a pillager’s axe.

 

“So,” the knight said softly. “A life in sin.” He hesitated. “If I am to burn regardless… I would like to feel pleasure again.” He sounded deeply shamed.

 

“You what?” Essock said blankly.

 

“I do not intend to be here much longer. Spill my seed for me once more.”

 

“How in God’s name do you intend to get out of here?” Essock said in disbelief.

 

“God will show me the way,” Aiken said firmly. “I’ve chosen the right path. I can feel it. He will lead me out of here.”

 

“And you want to get fucked before you leave. Just to be clear.”

 

He sounded embarrassed, at least. “I… I don’t think there will be many other opportunities on the road. It was never a problem before you. I never took penance for temptation.”

 

Essock looked at him for a while. Then he took off his helmet, bent to the knight’s groin, and kissed his damaged cock.

 

Aiken sucked in a sharp breath and dug his fingers hard against the stone floor. “What—” he croaked.

 

_“Stripling,”_ Essock breathed. Oh, God, what was he doing? He didn’t know, and he found increasingly that he didn’t care. He knew only that someone had _asked_ him to fuck, had only ever wanted or asked _him_ to fuck, and it was thrilling him. He was going to make Aiken feel good, damn it. His wife had used her mouth on his cock once, and it had been unusually good, far better than thrusting into her until he spilled himself and went to sleep. He didn’t think that Aiken was going to escape anytime soon, if ever, but the knight was going to enjoy himself freely before then, without bindings or begging.

 

It was careful work, with Aiken still in pain, but when Essock managed to be gentle and delicate enough, the effect was easily one of the most rewarding things he had ever done. He found himself making wet sounds around the cock, licking and sucking and even giving a little low groan at one point when it twitched in his mouth. He used a hand to massage the knight’s tormented balls while he was at it, and the effect seemed to be excellent.

 

He was straining against his own breeches when Aiken came suddenly, thrusting up into his mouth and spilling himself. Essock nearly gagged and quickly pulled his head away. The next few spurts landed on his face, but he found that he didn’t mind. He grinned up at Aiken. “Suppose your cock still works, stripling.” He gave it a long, slow lick from root to tip, reveling in the shudder it produced.

 

Then the cell door clanged shut, and he spun to face whatever had closed it.

 

It was the guard. “So this is what you do,” the man said softly. “Thought you just fucked men to put them in their place, but you enjoy it, don’t you?”

 

“Soldier,” Essock snarled, “open that door or I’ll have you whipped until you pass out.”

 

The guard looked at him for a moment. Then he said, “Don’t think so, commander. The army has a right to hear this. We’ll see what the others think of you sucking a man’s cock like a whore.”

 

“Is that so?” Essock surged to his feet. “Open this door!”

 

“There’s seed on your face. And you’re hard. _Commander.”_ The guard shook his head and left.

 

“Shit,” Essock said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It suddenly occurred to me what ought to happen with these two, so I wrote some of it. And I have no idea how to write religious people. Feel free to tell me I'm a heathen. Also, it'd probably really hurt to get your dick sucked after something like that, but I wanted some porn in there somewhere, damn it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Essock and Aiken escape the fort, head for safer lands, and struggle through a lot of angst (worry not, there's smut at the end).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Violence, angst, oral, anal, begging, lots of dirty talk, bit of cuddling.

Essock paced the cell, swearing. “That God-damned whoreson,” he spat. “I’ll flog him myself.”

 

“What’s he going to do?” Aiken pulled himself painfully to a sitting position and promptly collapsed against the wall.

 

“Tell the first officer he runs into that the commander sucks cock,” Essock said irritably. “The Lions are a rowdy bunch. That’ll be more than enough for them to call for a contest.”

 

“A vote, you mean? I’ve always been under the impression that the free companies hold democracy firm.”

 

“Oh, aye, a vote,” Essock said, probing the cell’s iron grating for weaknesses, “but the man who can defeat the other claimants in arms will be the one to win the vote.”

 

“Ah,” Aiken said, obviously deciding not to comment on this vision of democracy.

 

“Fuck it.” Essock unbuckled his sword. “Get your armor on, stripling. I’ll not wait here for the Lions’ judgement.” He jammed the scabbard between the door and its frame and began to exert pressure on it, as much as he could. If he could pry it loose enough to expose the bar of the lock, perhaps— 

 

The latch suddenly snapped, and the door exploded backward into him. He staggered backward into the wall with a grunt, clutching his nose.  _ “Fucking… _ ”

 

“Already?” Aiken said in surprise.

 

“Ugh,” Essock growled. He wiped seed and blood off of his face and reached for his helmet. “They’ll have heard that. Up.” He put the helmet on, buckled on his sword, and gripped Aiken’s forearm to pull him up.

 

Aiken, it transpired, had great difficulty moving. He needed to lean on Essock more often than not, and occasionally had to pause for a rest. It took them quite some time to reach the door of the prison. 

 

Essock looked at it for a moment. Then he lifted a battered club from a rack on the wall and handed it to Aiken. “Ready?” he asked, drawing his sword.

 

Aiken nodded, standing very nearly steady.

 

Essock opened the door and stepped out into the fort’s inner bailey. “Oh,” he said.

 

The election had obviously been a rampant failure. Several factions seemed to have emerged, and were fully engaged in the process of asserting their democratic right to lead by bashing each other over the head. The melee occupied most of the bailey, and by the sound of it, continued outside the walls.

 

“I think we should be all right if we just keep to the edges,” Essock said. He took Aiken’s arm in support and led him around the perimeter of the bailey. He had to shove away a few soldiers who thought that someone helping a wounded man made an easy target, but they otherwise proceeded without incident through the gates of the inner bailey and around the outer bailey—also full of screaming warriors—to the stables, where Essock tacked up a pair of sturdy-looking horses. He was in the process of packing one’s saddlebags with provisions when a knot of fighters came pouring into the stable, making the horses snort and spook.

 

Essock drew his sword to scare them off. He was a big man, and more than capable of getting some people to flee with a good threatening glare, maybe a battle cry for good measure. Then one said, “God’s son. That’s the commander.”

 

“Hey!” another yelled. “The commander’s escaped!” He dashed outside to spread the news.

 

“Oh, fucking hell,” Essock said. He dropped his sword, shoved Aiken into the saddle with difficulty, and slapped the horse on its hindquarters, sending it cantering out of the stable with an affronted whinny while Aiken struggled to catch the reins.

 

He meant to get on his horse and follow, but one of the soldiers was already on him. He rammed her with his shoulder and sent her staggering backward, giving him time to grab his sword from the packed-earth floor. He traded a few blows with her before seeing her compatriots come up behind her to join the fight and deciding, on balance, to give her a good kick to the groin, shove her into the others, and haul himself into the saddle.

 

The horse was already panicking, and it was lurching out of the stable with a precariously clumsy gait before he was anywhere close to finding the reins. He managed to catch them with one hand about halfway back to the inner bailey, at which point he hauled the horse around and directed it, despite its tossing protests, through the crowd of battle and out the main gate of the fort. He kept its head generally aligned with the well-worn road while he fought for his stirrups. By the time he’d got them, the sounds of battle were fading behind him, and he was looking ahead for Aiken. 

 

He spotted the knight not too far ahead, and urged the horse forward to catch up with him.

 

Aiken was slowing his horse to a walk, shifting uncomfortably and panting.

 

“Horse can’t be comfortable,” Essock said sympathetically. “You all right?”

 

Aiken leaned back in the saddle, up against the high cantle, with a groan, in a position that he clearly hoped would take the pressure off his groin. “God,” he sighed. “You’ve a barbarous lot of soldiers there.”

 

“Aye,” Essock said. “I’d hoped they might do a bit better, truth be told. I’ve some clever officers.” He shook his head. So much for being the Lions’ first long-term commander in decades.

 

Aiken removed his helmet, and Essock’s breath caught. The knight’s face, long but noble of feature, was as stunning and utterly perfect as the rest of him, even spotted with dirt and blood and with hair stiff with sweat. He had dark hair with a bit of a curl to it. His beard was a touch lighter, and he was a little older than Essock had expected, perhaps not much more than five years younger than himself.

 

Aiken raked his fingers through his hair. Then he looked out over the rocky hills. “I’ve little knowledge of these lands. We’d only held the fort a few days before you came.”

 

“It’s an empty country,” Essock said. “The only people out in these hills are shepherds, and there’s precious few of those. The soil’s poor and rocky, so there weren’t many to begin with, and the wars came early here, drove many of the rest out.”

 

Aiken nodded slowly. “I think it would be unwise to stay here.” He was quiet for a while. Then he sighed, as if steeling himself. “I will ride west. They say bandits have been taken root near Marald.”

 

“Travel with me,” Essock said. He felt a jump of delight in his gut, and elected to ignore it. “My estate is to the west, outside of Faerreth. You can take some time to recover there, and fill your bags.”

 

Aiken turned to look at him. His eyes—dark, tired, and unaccountably lovely—were stern. “You held me prisoner and…  _ abused _ me, mercenary. Why would I accompany you?”

 

The delight turned to a stone in his belly. Of course. He was a fool. And, like a fool, he found himself dumb. Aiken was turning away with a sigh and a shake of his head by the time he found his tongue. “I’m sorry,” he blurted.

 

Aiken turned back to look at him in disbelief.

 

“I was cruel to you. Crueller than I’ve been to any prisoner. It should not have been so. I…” He managed to meet Aiken’s eyes. “You have my sincere apologies, Sir Aiken of Whitcrane.”

 

Aiken looked at him for a long moment. Then he shook his head. “I’m no ‘sir’ now. And your words are pleasant enough, but they mean naught to me. You broke my vows. You forced me to beg to break them. You dishonored me. It’s because of you that I’ll not returning to the abbey, that I can no longer call myself a knight. It’s even your doing that I cannot sit properly. Your words…” He shook his head again and spurred his horse on. “I’ll take food and shelter from you, mercenary, but do not expect my friendship.”

  
  


Essock’s land was in a lightly wooded area. It lay some miles north of the town of Faerreth, near the skirts of the mountains. The earth was neither particularly rich, nor particularly poor, and the water was not so terribly fine, and the small, yellow grapes that could survive the snowy winters produced a rather tasteless vintage, but it was home, and Essock felt some of his cares ease as soon as he began to pass his tenants’ fields, draped in a light coating of snow. He knew this country. The wars had not raged so strong here, far from the cities. The huts and cottages of the farmers were generations old.

 

The manor house was old as well. It stood on a hill, but the trees of the land, combined with a sharp bend in the road, kept it hidden until they were quite close. It loomed suddenly, the evening sun catching the windows of its upper story and the smoke pouring from two chimneys.

 

Essock dismounted in front of the house. It was some time before the old groom emerged from the stable, stretching. He jumped when he saw Essock. “Sir,” he said in surprise. “We weren’t expecting you home for some months. And I’m afraid we’ve made no preparations for company—”

 

“Don’t worry yourself too much, Bordon,” Essock said, handing him the reins. “We’ve been on the road for weeks. A few more hours’ wait for food and quarters will make no difference.”

 

“Of course, sir,” the old man said with a small bow. “I’ll alert Cook when I’ve finished with the horses.”

 

“That’s all right. I’ll be asking her for mulled wine in a moment.” He stepped up to the ancient carved door and swung it open.

 

The entrance hall of the manor was tall, narrow, and always rather colder than the rest of the house. Essock closed the door behind Aiken and made his way quickly into the great room, which was immediately adjacent to the kitchen and had its own very large fireplace to boot.

 

A woman sitting by the fireplace got quickly to her feet. She relaxed a little after a moment. “My lord,” she said. “You startled me.”

 

“Miselle,” Essock said. He took off his helmet, went to her, and kissed her hand. Then he embraced her with one arm. “This is Aiken of Whitcrane,” he said, gesturing. 

 

Miselle curtsied briefly in his direction before turning back to Essock. “What’s happened?” Her gaze was sharp.

 

“Mutiny,” Essock admitted. “I am no longer the commander of the Lions.”

 

“God,” she muttered, running a hand over her long hair, tied back in a thick braid. “Are they following you? How did you insult them? Whence came Master Aiken?”

 

“We’ve seen no one following us,” Essock said. “Aiken was in the same cell as me. We escaped together.”

 

She gave him a quick, searching look, and nodded. “I’ll tell Cook we have a guest.” She curtsied again and left.

 

“You’re married,” Aiken said quietly.

 

“Yes.” Essock tried to make eye contact, but Aiken wasn’t looking at him. “She’s a good woman.”

 

“And you’ve no hesitation in leaving your marriage bed. For  _ men.” _

 

“I…” He shook his head. “Campaigns last months or years. I must sate myself on occasion.”

 

“On occasion? Every night, it seems. For weeks.” 

 

“That’s not… you were different. I’d never been so intemperate before.”

 

“I’m flattered, I’m sure.”

 

“You needn’t be flattered,” Essock said, frustrated. “You need to know I’m sorry for what I did to you.”

 

“As you’ve said. Are you sorry for what you’ve done to your wife?”

 

“She knows I lie with others while I’m on campaign, and I’m sure she does the same.”

 

“God,” Aiken said with venom. “Is there no sin you do not partake in?”

 

“Theft is not a habit of mine.”

 

“A veritable paragon of virtue.” He turned away in disgust.

 

Essock caught his shoulder and made eye contact. He kept it for a while, wondering what on God’s green earth he had intended to say, before Miselle came back in and he let go, not wanting to embarrass anyone.

 

“Dinner may be some time from now,” she said, her voice all quiet politeness and dignity. “Shall I show you to a room, Master Aiken?”

 

Aiken bowed awkwardly. “That would be most kind.” He followed Miselle out of the room, and Essock made for his own quarters to clean up and get out of his armor. He was down to his breeches and wiping himself down with a damp cloth with Miselle came in, skirts swaying, and closed the door behind her.

 

“Ess,” she said, and embraced him. Then she pulled back and looked up at him intently, hands on his shoulders. “Ess, what’s happened?”

 

He shook his head slowly. “I disgraced myself. The Lions didn’t take kindly to it. They were still fighting each other when I left.”

 

“You disgraced yourself?” she said with a frown. “What, in battle?”

 

Essock hesitated. “I’d rather not say.”

 

Her frown deepened, but she nodded. “All right. Are we in danger?”

 

“I don’t believe so.” He set down his cloth. “I think they’re far too busy squabbling amongst themselves than to waste time and resources dealing with me.”

 

She nodded again and released him. “Have you thought about what to do next? The estate won’t pay for itself long without your commission to help keep it up.”

 

He shook his head. “Only in passing.  We’ve been trying to cover ground as quickly as possible.”

 

“Well, you’ll need to think on it now.” She smiled a little. “I suppose you can have supper and a decent night’s sleep first.”

 

Supper turned out to be one of the most awkward meals Essock had ever eaten, including the four that had seen commanders murdered. Aiken hardly said two words together, and he wouldn’t speak to Essock at all. Miselle tried valiantly to keep up conversation for a while, but nothing stuck. The food was good, though, soup with chicken and barley, with thick dark bread and darker beer. It was a welcome relief from the biscuits and dried fish of the road. Essock finished quickly and bid Miselle and Aiken good evening.

 

He was asleep when Miselle came in, but he woke up when she climbed into bed next to him. “Ess,” she said softly, “what happened?”

 

He turned a little to get a better look at her. “What do you mean?” he asked sleepily.

 

“Did you hurt him?”

 

Essock snapped back to wakefulness immediately. He looked at his wife’s face. Her brow was knitted in concern. “Yes,” he said. “I did.”

 

She kept looking at him, obviously waiting for more. When he offered nothing, she sighed. “He was your prisoner. Did you torture him?”

 

He shook his head slowly. “Not in the usual sense.”

 

Miselle propped herself up on an elbow. “Ess. Tell me.”

 

Essock looked at her. It was time he told her, he supposed. It took him a long time to find the words for it, and when he did, they dropped off his tongue wrong. “It’s not women I bed when I’m on campaign.”

 

He was expecting shock and betrayal, but the look she gave him was one of slow understanding. “I see,” she said. “That clears things up.”

 

“It does?” he said in surprise.

 

She smiled a little. “Well, it clears up why you’re so boring in bed, anyway.”

 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have wedded you.”

 

“No,” she said. “No, I think it’s worked out well. It’s not men I bed while you’re gone.”

 

“Oh,” he said in blank surprise. That hadn’t occurred to him.

 

She put a hand on his shoulder. “Ess. Neither of us are fool enough to believe we married for love. But we wed regardless, and we owe each other support, if nothing else. I’ll help you as I can, but you need to talk to me.”

 

“Is it your chambermaid? Dahlia?”

 

The side of her mouth pulled up. “Yes, it’s Dahlia. It’s always been Dahlia. Her… her, I think I might love.” The smile faded. “Ess. Did you rape him?”

 

He nodded. Shame boiled up in him like vomit.

 

“You have to leave him alone.” She leaned in and touched his face. “Do you understand me? You must.”

 

“I know,” he said softly. “I know.”

  
  
  


Aiken stayed at the estate for some weeks. Essock avoided him as much as possible for the first two. After that, he stopped leaving any room that the knight entered, but he still avoided eye contact and speech as much as humanly possible.

 

Aiken seemed determined to make himself useful. He chopped wood, helped mend fences, assisted in repairing a barn, and even took goats out foraging a few times. Essock, with little else to do, did much the same, but steered well clear of Aiken. He kept as much distance between them as he could.

 

He knew Miselle was right. He had done something terrible to the knight, out of nothing more than base lust. He had been within his legal rights as captor, true, but that did not make what he had done any more moral. To rape a man repeatedly, force him to break sacred vows, batter his mind down so badly that he tried to mutilate himself… somewhere along the line, this had passed from simple relief to a concerted attack upon a single man. It had, in short, gotten personal. Essock had made it so. He didn’t know whether God would punish him after his death, but he knew that he had committed a great wrong.

 

The trouble was, Aiken wasn’t leaving. Essock had intended to see that he recovered his strength, and then supply him with horse and provisions and send him on his way. They would not see each other again. Aiken would not have to fear him. But Aiken wasn’t leaving, and you couldn’t ask a man to leave in midwinter when he had nowhere else to go. Especially not when you were the sole cause of the man having nowhere to go.

 

Essock enjoyed winter. The woods and fields always looked so clean and fresh covered in snow, and even the huts and houses of the peasants were softened by the layer of white. He was not a man of particularly aesthetic tastes, but he could appreciate these things. It was a pleasant change from the muds of spring, the buggy heat of summer, and the slow decay of autumn. 

 

Of course, with winter came the storms, great howling ones that came flying out of the north or down from the mountains to bear down, shrieking, on the central lands. They could last days or weeks, days or weeks of huddling up inside, hoping they had enough wood and food to last them through, staying near the great hearth, wrapping up in furs and great woollen cloaks in an attempt to stave off the cold. There weren’t many that winter, but the ones that came were vicious.

 

Essock sat in his accustomed chair by the hearth, near swallowed by a cloak of wolfskin, reading the incredibly dull writings of some saint or other. Miselle was similarly bundled in her own chair, embroidering a kerchief on a wheel, with Dahlia next to her, occupied with her own needlework. Cook and the potboy were peeling potatoes in the kitchen, and Aiken was presumably in his quarters, where he had spent much of the last two days.

 

“May I speak to you, my lord?”

 

Essock looked up in surprise. Aiken was standing there, looking at him. “Of course,” he said, bemused, setting down the book.

 

“In private.” Aiken looked rather pained, and seemed to be trying to look at him as little as possible.

 

Essock got to his feet, leaving the heavy cloak in the chair. “As you will.” He followed Aiken out of the great room, up the stairs, and to his quarters. 

 

He hadn’t been in these rooms since Aiken had come to the manor. They consisted of a bedroom and washroom, each small and with low ceilings. The bedroom had its own hearth, which kept it fairly warm, Essock was pleased to find. The furnishings were simple, as they were in the rest of the manor, but it was comfortable enough.

 

“I can’t do this any longer,” Aiken said. 

 

Essock was shocked by how strained his voice was. He turned to look at the knight, and saw a countenance twisted up in anguish. He opened his mouth to ask, but Aiken held up a hand to forestall him.

 

“I cannot sit here, in the same house as you, knowing you’re just there, within calling distance. It eats away at my insides. I have to leave.”

 

“Well,” Essock said hesitantly, “you can’t leave now. But your horse is in fine form, and I can give you provisions to be on your way when the storm clears.”

 

“I  _ know,”  _ Aiken groaned. He ran his fingers through his hair and took a few paces toward the hearth. “God. I know.”

 

“I’m sorry for what I did to you.” He didn’t know what else to say. “But you needn’t be anywhere near me. I can remain in my rooms until the storm passes, instruct Cook on what to give you for your journey. The snows will likely only remain for another day or so. You’re nearly done.”

 

“It’s too late,” Aiken said brokenly. “You’re here. I cannot restrain myself any longer.”

 

Essock eyed Aiken’s sword, leaning against the wall on the other side of the room. He was near unarmed himself, with only the dagger in his boot to defend himself. He was sure he could reach it before Aiken could strike with the sword, but without armor, he had doubts about his ability to get in close enough to make good use of the dagger.

 

“Remove your garments.”

 

Essock felt his jaw drop and managed to catch it before too long. “What?” he croaked.

 

“Take them off.” Aiken was nearly begging. “I have to feel it again before I leave. Please, I must.”

 

“You…” Essock’s mouth didn’t seem to be working as well as it had in the past. “You have to feel what?”

 

“Pleasure!” Aiken was staring at him as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I’ve spilled myself with my hand, but it does nothing. I still feel the fire, and nothing I do will snuff it out. I need something more.” 

 

“You, ah…” He closed his eyes briefly, unable to keep eye contact. Oh God, he could not do this, he must not do this, it would be wrong, wrong, wrong. “You could find someone else to bed. I’m sure there’s many a peasant girl who’d love to lie with a knight-errant.”

 

Aiken was already shaking his head. “I’ve tried to think of women. I have. But they don’t quicken me. And I daren’t ask a man.”

 

“I’m a man,” Essock said indignantly.

 

“Aye, but I know you’ll lie with another man,” Aiken said, exasperated. “For God’s bloody sake, this is difficult enough, mercenary. You’ll do it, we both know that, so stop playing the blushing maid and bare yourself.”

 

Essock stood there for a moment, fully intending to deliver a haughty glare before turning on his heel and leaving. If doing yet another wrong against this man wasn’t bad enough, surely being insulted would be enough to turn him away.

 

“And it’ll be me in you this time,” Aiken added. It was clearly supposed to sound intimidating, but the way the knight went crimson and glanced away as he said it rather ruined the effect.

 

_ Oh Holy God.  _ Essock had been entirely unprepared for the way his cock reacted to that statement.  _ Oh, God, no.  _ He was rapidly stiffening in his breeches. He’d certainly never been fucked before, had never even considered it, and now the most gorgeous man he’d ever met was going to— 

 

The hell he was. No, absolutely not, this was absurd. No. Essock shook his head. “No, stripling. No. I’ve hurt you enough.” He turned to leave.

 

_ “No!”  _

 

A hand caught his shoulder, fingers digging in through the dark quilted doublet, and Essock felt himself lose whatever contest was taking place when his lips parted and his cock jumped.  _ Oh God. Oh, God. _

 

Aiken pulled him around and pushed him back onto the bed, then hopped up after him and knelt between his legs. The knight’s long fingers fumbled at the horn toggles of Essock’s doublet, quickly adjusting to the unfamiliar motion until he was undoing them with great efficiency, and then the last one slipped free of its loop, and Aiken was pulling the garment open, revealing an undyed wool shirt. He cupped Essock’s chest through it and pressed their cocks together, letting loose a low groan at the delicious friction when they touched.

 

Essock closed his eyes and opened his mouth in something that wasn’t quite a moan, but dug his fingers into the blanket, intent on holding out as long as possible, even if he couldn’t bring himself to shove Aiken away and leave.

 

Aiken slid his hands up under Essock’s shirt. They were cool against the bare skin of his stomach and ribs and  _ chest, he’s already there,  _ sweet fingers delving for sensitive spots, and then an inexperienced mouth came to kiss along his jaw and down his neck and along his collarbone, and he was already grinding himself against Aiken’s thigh and making soft little wordless murmurs, breath coming heavy, and then he gave up and was groping at the lacings holding Aiken’s tabard on.  _ Oh, God, that didn’t take long. _

 

“Fuck,” he muttered as the ties continued to evade him. Aiken was getting his shirt off and unbuckling his belt and he couldn’t get the man’s first bloody layer off. Aiken finished unlacing his shirt, and Essock stopped fumbling for a moment to get it over his head and throw it off to the side before yanking Aiken back down against him. He kissed the knight and moaned into his mouth, his leg pressing up against Aiken’s, his left hand still tugging at lacing while his right came up around behind Aiken’s head, digging into soft curls and holding him close,  _ God.  _ “Fuck, how do you get this off?”

 

“You’ve knotted it,” came the pant against his lips. “I’ll get it. Suck me.” Aiken pulled away and settled back onto his knees, and Essock sat up and dropped himself between Aiken’s legs without hesitation. He unbuckled the belt that confronted him, and unlaced the codpiece, and slid them and the chausses out of the way, and undid the wooden buttons of the breeches, and then,  _ finally,  _ there it was, and he took it into his mouth, slipping his hands around to squeeze at Aiken’s ass as he licked his cock.

 

By the time Aiken had unknotted the tabard’s laces, pulled it over his head, and dropped it off the side of the bed, he was already panting and making little needy sounds. He undid the braided ties that ran down the top half of his tunic, and barely managed to get it off before he doubled over, moaning, gripping the back of Essock’s head. “Oh, God. Stop.” He shoved Essock back against the bed.

 

Essock gazed up at him, panting. He took in the beautiful, scarred, freckled torso, even more beautiful now that its owner had proper food and exercise, and the flush that had spread from the throat down, and the cock standing out hard from its thatch of hair, wet and dripping, and the little shudders that came with each breath, and knew he needed more. He gave a low groan and lifted his hips in a wordless gesture of need.

 

The noise that Aiken made in response was delightful, but not as much as when he finally undid Essock’s breeches and yanked them down, freeing his cock. “Oh, God. Look at you.” He pulled the breeches all the way off, then got off the bed to step out of his own. “You need this. All that time, you fucking me every night, you had it all wrong. This was what you needed. Was that why you kept coming back? Because you knew I could give it to you?”

 

Essock was vaguely aware that, as far as he knew, he had never been so hard in his life. 

 

Aiken got back between his legs, took his cock in hand, and guided himself in.

 

Essock pressed back against the cock driving into him.  _ Oh, Holy God, more, more, more.  _ “God’s fucking blood,” he gasped. It was like nothing he had ever felt before, a sensation of stretching, and there was pain but there was  _ so much pleasure,  _ and he needed— “Oh, God, God, come on, more,  _ more.”  _

 

Aiken leaned down, nearly lying on top of him, and Essock reached up behind him, pulling him down, shoving himself up against him,  _ fuck,  _ this was exquisite, and he was desperate for more, desperate to touch and be touched and be  _ fucked  _ and to feel Aiken’s cock inside him and run his hands over that beautiful body and say his name and beg for more.

 

“Oh, you  _ love  _ it, mercenary,” Aiken panted in his ear between groans. “God in Heaven, you can’t get enough of it.  _ Look  _ at you. You’ve a beauty to you like this, all open for me. No bloodlust about you now, no cruelty, only  _ need.” _

 

_ “Yes,”  _ Essock breathed. “Yes, oh, God, more. Fuck me. Go on, stripling.” He groaned and dug his nails hard into Aiken’s back with the next thrust. “Fuck.”

 

“I’m going to make you spill yourself.” Aiken was laying marks into Essock’s chest with his lips and teeth. “You’ve no need for a hand on your cock, not like this, not with me. You’ve all you need right here, inside you.” He picked up the pace, and Essock moaned.

 

A nipple brushed his, and he thought he might die when it became clear that Aiken had enjoyed it at least as much as he had. “Stripling,” he managed with a grin in his voice. He slipped a hand between them to play with Aiken’s chest, and stroke his collarbones, and touch the sensitive skin below his navel, and do all the things that he remembered from the prison that had made the knight scream. 

 

Aiken’s thrusts became erratic, and whenever Essock tweaked a nipple he would spasm, and it wasn’t long before he could barely hold himself up, was gasping and whining into Essock’s shoulder as he fucked. “You…” he panted, and promptly shuddered and arched his back as Essock reached down to his balls. “You mercenary bastard.  _ Oh,  _ fuck. You’ve no decency, no compassion, no morality, no faith.” There was the slightest touch of humor in his voice. He moaned. “I’ve never met a soul like you.” 

 

“Go on,” Essock breathed. “Go on, stripling, finish, I’ll manage myself.”

 

“Don’t you  _ dare,”  _ Aiken spat. He rammed himself in hard, and Essock shook and made a desperate noise. “You’ll not lay a hand on yourself. It’ll be by my doing alone if you spill yourself.”

 

“If?” Essock squeezed a little with the hand that was toying with Aiken’s balls, and the knight winced. “If, stripling?” He’d never heard a smile in his own voice in bed before. “You think it can be avoided now?” He let his voice go deep and rumbly. “With you on me,  _ in  _ me, talking like that, fucking like—” He groaned at a particularly deep thrust. “Fucking like that, you think I can possibly stop myself?” He shuddered and arched himself up into the knight’s body, wanting  _ oh God more.  _

 

“You’re right, of course.” Aiken’s voice was strained. “Oh, God. Can’t expect a man of your sort to contain yourself. Too accustomed to sin. You’ve nothing to hold you back, no misgivings to keep you from letting everything boil up inside you and tense and tense and  _ tense  _ until you think you’ll fucking explode—”

 

_ “Nnn,”  _ Essock groaned. He was doing his own thrusting now, trying his best to complement Aiken’s rough movements with sharp little ones that gave him the friction he needed, let his cock slide against Aiken’s belly while the thrilling sensation in his ass continued. “Come on. Come on, stripling, fuck me harder, finish yourself, I’ll follow, I’ll follow,  _ oh God.” _

 

Aiken seemed only too happy to oblige. He hunched over Essock and spread his knees a little, then began fucking away desperately in short, fast strokes. His hands clutched at Essock’s chest, thumbs rubbing. His breath came in harsh pants, rough and needy.

 

They finished at nearly the same moment, Aiken stuttering to a halt and spilling himself inside as Essock ground up against the knight’s stomach and stilled his hips with a moan.

 

Then their lips were together, sliding in quick kisses between deep breaths. Essock ran his hands gently over Aiken’s scratched back, reveling in the smooth flow of his body beneath his palms, and closed his eyes in sudden exhaustion. “God,” he whispered into Aiken’s mouth. “You’re lovely, stripling.”

 

“Mm,” came the soft sigh. Then something hot slipped out of Essock’s ass, and he made a soft sound that wasn’t quite a moan. Aiken slid off and rolled onto his back. For a moment they were still. Then Aiken pressed himself up against Essock and rested a hand on his chest. “You’re warm, mercenary.”

 

“It’s all the hellfire.” Ugh, had he just quipped? He sighed and put an arm around the knight. 

 

A few minutes later, when much of the heat of their exertions had dissipated in the face of the winter chill, Aiken got off the bed to free the blanket. “Suppose you can’t stay here,” he said softly.

 

“I don’t suppose I can.” Essock kept his voice low as well, as if simply speaking the words would make them truer. “Miselle wouldn’t mind, I think, but the servants would talk.” He lifted himself off of the blanket as Aiken pulled it up, and winced at the touch of the cold mattress. 

 

Aiken flopped down beside him and pulled the blanket over them. “Aye.”

 

Essock sighed again and pulled Aiken in for another kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that one was a doozy. Thanks for your patience, and hope you all enjoyed it!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Essock and Aiken make an honest, if awkward attempt to work through some issues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oral sex, dirty talk, guilt, angst, caught in the act, mutual sort-of-consensual non-monogamy, really impressive quantities of angst.

“God,” Essock murmured as he kissed his way up the inside of Aiken’s thigh, “you’re beautiful, stripling.”

  
Aiken made a low, comfortable noise that was somewhere between a sigh and a moan, and settled back further against the pillow. His cock was hardening lazily.

 

“Look at that,” Essock purred. He didn’t think he’d ever purred before. He drew his tongue from the base of Aiken’s cock up to his navel in one long, slow lick, reveling in the sweet tensing arch and soft noise that he elicited. “Look at you, getting hard for me.”

 

“Show me yours,” Aiken breathed, running his fingers through Essock’s hair. “I know you’re feeling it, too.”

 

Essock rolled to the side and shifted the blanket a little, exposing his own erection. “Your doing.”

 

“Naturally.” Aiken pulled himself up onto his elbows and watched Essock mouth at his intimate places for a time before sitting up. “Come on, then, mercenary.” He pulled Essock up to face him and kissed him. Then his hand slid down Essock’s torso and found his cock.

 

“You don’t have to,” Essock said, keeping his voice low.

 

“If I sin again tonight, I will at least not be the only one.” The chuckle that followed was so painfully forced that Essock stopped dead.

 

“Stripling,” Essock said softly. He stilled his hips, which had been occupied with rocking to follow Aiken’s hand, and felt the knight tense and avoid his eyes. “Aiken,” he tried. “I don’t wish to hurt you any more than I’ve done already. If this isn’t what you want…”

 

“It is,” Aiken said forcefully. “Can you not feel it?”

 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. You, of all people, know that what your cock wants and what you want have no obligation to each other.”

 

Aiken sighed. “It  _ is  _ what I want. I’m to burn, I’ve accepted it. You need not remind me of it. Especially not while I’m engaged in the one vice I’ll allow myself.” When Essock kept looking at him, he shook his head, and his voice grew quiet and weary. “Besides, I’ve decided. I’ll only sin with you. Still foul, still out of wedlock, still adultery, but  _ Christ, _ at least I’ll only lie with one. I’ll not whore myself out for my own lust.”

 

Essock was still working through that, one part at a time, trying to determine how best to respond, when Aiken shoved him back onto the bed and took his cock into his mouth. “Stripling,” Essock croaked. _Oh, God. Oh, God, why did I have to find the one repressed religious fool who’s absolutely gorgeous, and with a tongue like—_ “Stripling, you needn’t— _fuck.”_

 

Aiken was proving to be highly talented, licking and sucking and doing things with his tongue that made Essock shudder, and then he took Essock’s balls in hand and began to play with them while kneading his ass with the other hand, and Essock was lost, reduced to grunting and moaning and trying not to move his hips too much. 

 

He heard a faint sound, but it didn’t register. He was too busy entwining a hand in Aiken’s hair, watching the head move on his cock, seeing the knight’s half-lidded eyes look up to meet his. Then the eyes went wide, and something told Essock that he ought to react, but he couldn’t quite manage it, not with his cock in someone’s mouth. At least not until he heard Miselle say, “Ess?” Then he pulled free and spun to face the door, which his wife was rapidly closing behind her.

 

“Miselle!” He shoved the blanket over Aiken’s legs for him to pull it over his parts, and grabbed a pillow for himself. “Miselle.” Shit, why couldn’t he think of anything to say?

 

“Ess.” Miselle’s hand was at her mouth, and she was shaking her head. “Ess, have you hurt him?”

 

Essock was already shaking his head. “No. No.”

 

She ignored him. “Master Aiken. Are you all right?”

 

Aiken nodded, apparently unable to speak.

 

“God, Ess.” There was an angry flush building high in her cheeks. “God.” Her hands were moving, apparently of their own accord, too furious to stay still. Then she crossed the room in a few swift strides and slapped him across the face. “I told you to leave him alone! For God’s sake, Ess, you can’t keep doing this to him.”

 

“I didn’t,” Essock said. “It just…”

 

“I did it to him,” Aiken said. Miselle stared at him, and he avoided her gaze. He sounded pained. “I brought him up here for it. I wanted it. I wanted it more than anything. My sin.”

 

Miselle looked searchingly at him, as if looking for anything that hinted at a lie, at coercion, anything. Then she looked embarrassed. “Oh.” She looked to Essock. “I’m sorry. I thought—”

 

“I know,” Essock said. “I’d’ve thought the same.” He shook his head slowly. “We’re both at fault.”

 

“Both at—no, this was my wrong, mercenary,” Aiken said hotly. “I took you to my bed that I could take you. You had little say in the matter.” Miselle’s eyebrows flew up, and he went red. Essock was not easily embarrassed, but he felt himself flushing as well. 

 

“All right,” Miselle said after a pause. “This is mutual now, then?”

 

“In a sense,” Essock said tentatively. “We were discussing that.”

 

“Ess.” She sighed. “‘In a sense’ means nothing here.” Then her voice softened a little. “I’ve never known you to hem and haw. What is it?”

 

“He took a vow of chastity,” Essock explained. “I broke it on campaign, by force. By his oath, he’s to return to the abbey at Whitcrane and make his penance. He’s decided not to, and to renounce his knighthood, on the condition that he continues to act as a holy knight, helping those who cannot help themselves. Only…”

 

“Only he still feels lust,” Miselle said. She nodded slowly and sat down on the bed. “Aiken. You cannot have this both ways.”

 

He looked at her. “Both ways?”

 

“You cannot both live by your faith and oaths, and do what you believe to be a sin.” She brushed a hair that had escaped her braid out of her face. “It will consume you.”

 

“I’ve no other recourse,” Aiken said. “If I return to the abbey, I forsake all the weak I might help.”

 

“Then try to understand that what you feel is no sin. It’s a natural urge. God-given.”

 

“Aye, given by God as a test. One I’ve failed, over and over.”

 

Essock reached out and put a hand on his knee on instinct. The knight sounded so torn. He saw Miselle watching him, but the touch had made Aiken’s shoulders relax a little, and he could not bring himself to move away.

 

“Right,” Miselle said. “As I see it, you have three choices. You can return to keeping your oath, go out as a knight-errant, as you intended. You can return to the abbey and do your penance. Or you can return to the abbey, renounce your oath, and do as you will in the world.”

 

Aiken blanched at the last. “I cannot give up my oath.”

 

“So do your penance, or forgive yourself your lapse and make up for it by keeping to your oaths more strongly in the future.”

 

He shook his head. “I cannot.”

 

“The only thing you truly cannot do is continue as you are. You’re tearing yourself apart. It cannot last.”

 

He sighed. “What would you have me do, then?”

 

“I?” Miselle gave a small, sad smile. “I’d have you renounce your oath, and if you think you can be happy with Ess, return here and be happy with him. But that may not be best for you. It’s only you who truly knows what would be best, and you’ll have to decide, in the end. It need not be now, but I think it must be soon.”

 

Aiken looked at her for a while. Then he put a hand on Essock’s, on his knee, and nodded. “You speak wisely, my lady. Things cannot continue as they are. I must reconcile myself with the abbey, one way or another.”

 

“I wish you all the best,” Miselle said softly. “And if I may aid you in any way, please, ask what you will of me.” 

 

When she had gone, Essock turned to look at him. “What are your thoughts, stripling?”

 

Aiken rested himself back against the bed. “I believe I have a great deal of thinking and praying to do.”

 

“Should I leave you to it, then?” Essock said uncertainly. 

 

“I think that would be best.”

 

Essock nodded slowly. He squeezed Aiken’s hand, got up, dressed himself, and headed for the bedroom. When he arrived, Miselle was already in bed, but still working on her embroidery, clearly waiting for him. He changed into his nightshirt and climbed in under the winter blankets, waiting for her to speak.

 

“What do you think he’ll do?” she asked eventually. Her voice was soft and serious.

 

“I can’t say that I know,” Essock said honestly. “I’ve no certainty that I could even lay a guess.”

 

“He’s likely lived most of his life in that abbey. They take their knights young. Their teachings are all he knows. You’re a terribly recent thing. Without you beside him as a reminder of what he’s missed, I’d think it unlikely that he’ll renounce his oath.”

 

“You think he’ll return and do penance, then?”

 

“I don’t know.” She set her embroidery down. “I believe he’s enjoyed being here, and you say he enjoys you. But I cannot say whether that will overcome a lifetime of teaching.” She embraced him. “You did pick a difficult one.” She kissed him on the cheek, where she had struck him. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I should’ve trusted you to do the right thing.”

 

“I’m not at all certain I trust myself to do the right thing,” Essock said with a sigh. “That bloody knight, Miselle. I cannot resist him.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I thought he would go for his sword tonight, but instead he begged to go to bed. I tried to tell him no, but… God, I could not prevent myself.”

 

“If you both were so desperate for it, I don’t think it can have been so terribly wrong.” Miselle grinned suddenly. “God, I forgot it’s adultery. It slips the mind so easily.”

 

“I know,” Essock said. He felt the corner of his mouth quirk in a small smile. Then it faded. “You know you’re a good woman?”

 

She blinked at him. “Ess?”

 

“Me being distant, not bedding you as a man ought, it’s naught to do with you. You know that?”

 

She smiled. “Of course. And you know that me not enjoying you as a woman ought, loving Dahlia, you know it’s not because of you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Good.” She hugged him again. “I think we do rather well as friends, Ess.”

 

He squeezed her shoulder in return. “I think that’s so.” 

  
  
  


The sun was out the next morning, casting light on a world of brilliantly glittering snow and ice. Essock admired it through the mullioned window for a time before dressing himself. Miselle woke as he was doing so and stretched. Then she got out of bed, wrapped herself in a thick patchwork dressing gown, and left to see Dahlia and be dressed.

 

When he had gotten his clothes on, Essock took to looking out the window again. He wanted to go see Aiken, but the prospect was also a daunting one. He was nervous, he realized. It was not a sensation he was very familiar with. He knew the quiet terror that came before battle, the kind that ground at every nerve, and he knew the constant alertness that came with being a soldier, especially a soldier with the Ferstrewn Lions, and he knew the fear of death, but he was not well acquainted with nervousness. 

 

He worked himself up to it eventually. He left the golden morning light of his window and went to Aiken’s rooms. When he let himself in, he found the knight kneeling on the floor, facing the window, head down, hands clasped in prayer. “Stripling?” he said softly.

 

Aiken jumped a little, but it was slow, a struggle. He parted his hands and put them on his knees, then made to get to his feet. 

 

Essock came and helped pull him up. The knight was stiff, and moved with little wincing motions. “Were you there all night?”

 

Aiken nodded and stretched a little, grimacing. “I’ve made my decision,” he said hoarsely.

 

Essock felt himself tense, and forced himself to relax. He put an arm around Aiken on instinct. “And what have you decided?” he asked, as softly as he could.

 

Aiken took a deep breath. “I will renounce my oath.”

 

_ “Stripling,”  _ Essock said. He hadn’t dared to hope for this. Miselle was right, after all. Aiken had spent much of his life in an abbey. What was Essock but a temptation, a dark figure come to lead him astray? And now… “I didn’t… I thought not…” Then a thought struck him, and he had to ask. “Will you return here? After?”  _ You hurt him. Once he’s free, he’ll not want to be with you. He was staying with you because he thought it was less of a sin. He’ll go elsewhere, find someone whose touch brings no fear. _

 

“I’ll return.” Aiken turned to face him. “I will return, but I must leave today, or I never will.”

 

“Today?” Essock said, his mouth going dry. “The storm has moved on, but the snow is deep, and the ice…”

 

“Do you not see?” He closed his eyes briefly. “I’ve made my decision now, to come back to you. Knowing that, now… it becomes so easy to simply stay, to never again return to Whitcrane. I know I must go to the abbey, but I fear that every moment I stay here, the temptation to forsake it entirely, leave loose ends where they are, grows stronger. I cannot allow that to happen.”

 

Essock nodded. “I understand.” He drew Aiken close in an embrace, and was struck by how painfully exquisite it was. It felt right, so agonizingly  _ right  _ that he thought he could never let go. They fit perfectly against each other, and Essock felt himself melting into Aiken in a way that he never had with Miselle. It was as if the act of holding each other was drawing cares and pains from him, letting him relax and lean in, be close as he had never been close to another before, and he knew from the way Aiken moved that he felt the same.

 

Then Aiken pressed a kiss against him and pulled away. “I must prepare,” he said.

 

“I’ll have Cook pack you a bag,” Essock said, wanting nothing more than to step forward and pull him close and kiss him back, kiss and touch him everywhere and make him see that he was just as good, just as perfect now, as he would be if he went and told the abbey that he wasn’t going to be keeping his oath any longer. “I can ready your horse.”

 

Aiken nodded. His lips were pressed tightly together. 

 

The horse was unhappy to be roused, tacked up, and led out into the cold, but it obliged grudgingly. Essock rubbed its neck and let it stick its whiskery muzzle into his hair. He hadn’t donned coat or cloak. He knew he should’ve, but he hadn’t. He focused on the cold, cutting into his skin and making his bones ache. It kept his attention away from thoughts of Aiken.

 

It worked until Aiken came outside, armed and armored. A heavy woolen cloak was draped around his shoulders. Clouds of his breath issued forth from the vents in his helm. Essock had no doubt that he would have kissed him and never let him go if there hadn’t been steel in the way. 

 

He helped Aiken into the saddle, and then took his gloved hand. He held it tightly, and looked up at him. He’d never had any talent for communication, but he tried now, tried to tell Aiken everything he felt without saying it. He found Aiken’s eyes behind his visor, and held them. “Ride swiftly and safely,” he said, and squeezed his hand.

 

Aiken inclined his head and squeezed back. “I shall return as soon as I am able.” His voice was soft, and it caught a little. Then he was gone, heading down the road, horse pushing through the snow. Essock watched until they were out of sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the break between updates. I decided to just finish up the whole thing and see what sort of direction it went, and that ended up involving a good twenty more pages than I thought it would. On the bright side, I'll be posting all the rest of it now, so you get to read the whole thing in one go.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone has a shitty two years, but there's a glimmer of hope at the end. No smut this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst, war, death, violence, war crimes, mass starvation, cannibalism, nightmares, general death and destruction.

Essock felt the absence keenly, and there seemed to be a constant note of worry in the back of his mind now, but it was not until a month had passed with no word that his reason began to grow concerned as well. He kept it tamped down as long as he could. It was a long way to Whitcrane, and the snows made travel slow. And the abbey likely would not finance a courier for one who was no longer of its flock. What purpose in it, in truth? It couldn’t take long to renounce an oath, and Aiken would most probably not be allowed to remain after doing so. No need to send a courier a day ahead of him.

 

After two months, he took to watching the road through the window during supper. He could so clearly imagine Aiken riding up to the manor, worn from travel, horse shaggy and unkempt, both of them muddy from the wet spring roads. It would be so easy, if only he would just appear. He could come riding around the bend at any moment, surely.

 

After three months, he prepared to ride for Whitcrane. It had taken too long. He should have gone weeks ago. He berated himself, cursing his inaction, as he tacked up a horse. He was saying farewell to Miselle and the servants when the soldier arrived. The man was offering a contract with an army in the service of Lord Vaneron. A summer of war-work. It would bring much-needed funds to the estate, help secure their position and bolster their supplies and defenses. There was no choice, really. If the estate fell, the two villages on its lands would be left defenseless, ripe prey for bandits and aspiring warlords. Duty had to come first, and Essock rode for Marald instead of Whitcrane that day.

 

Summer stretched into autumn, and the wars dragged on. For every town and castle secured for Lord Vaneron, another declared for or was taken by one warlord or another, and, despite Essock’s best efforts at posting garrisons to help keep all they took, those they had already taken kept falling, either declaring themselves independent or being taken from the outside. Essock spent that winter hunting bandits in the mountains, trying to thin them out while they struggled with each other for food.

 

Spring began with recovery efforts. It had been a harsh winter, with many dead of cold and war and banditry, and great swaths of farmland were still lying untilled come planting season. Essock set much of his army to helping farmers. Undignified work for a soldier, and it brought many complaints, but if the peasants weren’t even growing enough to feed themselves, the rest would collapse. Essock had seen it once before, when he was a page. Entire armies without food, dying off within weeks, tens of thousands of corpses lying frozen all winter and putrefying come spring, poisoning land and water alike, not to mention the townsfolk and craftsmen, who would begin by rioting and end dead in their homes when there was no food to be found. All those that Essock knew, himself included, had survived that winter by eating the dead. 

 

He would not let it happen again. So his soldiers took up shovels and hoes.

 

Late spring brought in news that the Ferstrewn Lions had fallen, once and for all, at the hands of an army from the south. Every last one of them had died defending a city. Essock might have been proud and a little grieved, had he not been more busy dealing with the army that had taken the city, which was now coming to seize Vaneron’s more westerly lands.

 

The southerners, secure in their supply chains, focused on burning them out. They set the torch to every field and hovel they found, devastating an already weak harvest. Essock funneled the enemy as best he could into regions where many had died over the winter, but the other commander was a clever bastard. By midsummer, it was clear that Vaneron’s western holdings would not survive the year. Essock urged a retreat, and got it. If the armies left, no doubt the peasants would be spared.

 

He was wrong. The southern army burnt out the west, slaughtering as they went, and then returned to their own lands to the south, where they had enjoyed a rich harvest and a fine year for wine-making. It was around that time that Essock began to have night terrors, full of burning men and women and children.

 

By the time the first snows came in, the little food that could be harvested was stored away in fortresses and castles, and Essock set the vast majority of the army to guarding it and rationing it to the population, with only token patrols sent out to protect the peasantry against bandits. He wrote Vaneron repeatedly, begging for more supplies. A few meager wagons were the response. The rest of the lord’s lands had had a poor harvest.

 

Come spring, Essock’s nights had been repopulated with corpses crawling out of the dark, spreading ice as they went, and the army had been more than halved. Even eating the dead, which was done under careful supervision, was not enough to save most. Those that survived were bone-thin and weak as children. Townsfolk, artisans, and peasants had suffered badly. As soon as it grew warm enough, Essock set what remained of the army to helping with the planting. The next harvest had to be better. Had to be.

 

In late March, Essock received a missive.

 

He appointed a woman of good sense and a steady sword arm, who had once been a farmer herself, to command while he was gone. He was loathe to leave, but for a summons to Whitcrane Abbey, there was little he would not abandon. He rode hard and fast to the east, across war-torn country, all of it soaked in mud. He would stop at his estate for a day or so, to resupply and let the horse rest, and then he would be off.

 

When he arrived at his lands, he was greeted by a wall, hastily erected of wood with a stone base. A gate was clearly supposed to bar his way, but it had been bashed open, with one door entirely off its hinges, and it was unguarded.

 

Many fields were tilled, but many of his tenants’ homes had been destroyed, some quite recently. That did not distress him as much as the fact that he encountered no one. All through the first village, no one, and no one in the farmhouses, no one in the crofts, no one. When he rounded the bend to the manor, he found it a pile of burnt beams and ash. After staring at it for a time, wondering who had been in it when it had gone down, he rode on to the second village.

 

Another wall had been erected around that village, and a timber keep could be seen over it. Essock rode to the heavy wooden gate, dismounted, and knocked.

 

“Who goes there?” barked a man from atop the wall. Essock looked up, and the man leaned over and peered more closely. “My lord?” he said in surprise.

 

“Bordon?”

 

“My lord!” The old groom made his way down to the gate and opened it. “Sir, it is a delight to see you. Please, come in, quickly.” He ushered Essock into the village, which appeared to have been made as war-ready as it could be. The walls were thick, but at the moment, undermanned. The forge had been enlarged, and a number of new buildings had been raised, including one that appeared to be an armory.

 

“What’s happened?” 

 

“Bandits, sir. I imagine you’ll want to hear much of it from my lady.”

 

“Miselle’s alive?”

 

“Yes, sir, and quite well. Come, you’ll see.” He led Essock through the village and up to the small wooden keep.

 

Essock didn’t recognize Miselle at first. She was clad in steel, with one of his old swords on her hip and a shield on the table that she leaned over. She was in deep discussion with several people who looked to be farmers. Dahlia was at her side. “The gate needs to be our first priority,” Miselle was saying. “I know it’s been quiet, but we must not be caught unawares again. And we need more homes. I know we all want to expand out to Rolfdon again, but it’s undefended, and we haven’t the means to build a keep there yet. Now that the seeds are in, we can focus on—” She stopped and looked up. There was a scar on her cheek. “Ess?”

 

They moved to embrace each other at the same moment. “Ess,” Miselle sighed. She stepped back to look at him, her hands on his shoulders. “It’s been a very long two years.” 

 

Essock nodded. “What’s happened?”

 

She stepped away and beckoned him over to the table, where she pointed at a crude map of the grounds, done in charcoal on a goat hide. “Two years of bandits, in essentials. You’ve missed the worst of it, I think. I’ve no doubt they’ll be back again, but we’ve learned to manage them ourselves for the most part. They burned the manor, and we lost Rolfdon over the winter, but we’ve kept Riverston, and fortified it, as I’m sure you saw.”

 

“Where are they keeping themselves? Do you know?”

 

She shook her head. “Somewhere to the north. They’ve proven themselves very adept at remaining hidden, and without any trained soldiers, I’ve been reluctant to send anyone out looking for them.”

 

“Good,” Essock said. “No point wasting lives on that.”

 

“What’s brought you back? Is your war done at last?”

 

Essock grimaced. “No. I…” He hesitated. Telling his wife that he was about to leave her again and run off to an abbey for a man he’d only known for a couple of months suddenly seemed unspeakably foolish. “I’ll tell you this evening. What can I do to help?”

 

“Get people together to mend the gate, if you’re not too spent from the road. The bandits seem to have little trouble scaling the walls, but I won’t allow them to simply walk in.”

  
  
  


Essock read her the letter that evening over mulled wine and potatoes. When he was done, Miselle shook her head.

 

“Ess. It’s been two years. The abbot’s vague enough, but Aiken hasn’t renounced his oath, I promise you. I’m glad he’s alive, but he’s not going to come away with you. You understand that?”

 

“I have to know, Miselle.” He sighed. “I know it’s foolishness. But I have to know.”

 

“I know,” she said. She touched his face. “I know, but you must not expect too much from this. They’ve likely summoned you so that he can renounce you before them.”

 

He’d thought it to himself, but hearing her say it was somehow worse. He leaned back into his chair. “I know.”

 

She took his hand and sat in companionable silence for a time. Then she asked, “When will you leave?”

 

“As soon as you can spare me. I trust the woman I left in command, but I can’t be away for too long. You’ve received my commission, in any case?”

 

“Yes,” Miselle said, “in part.”

 

Essock looked at her for a moment. “In part,” he said finally.

 

“In part. Lord Vaneron is, I suspect, not as honorable now as he once was.” She shook her head slowly. “We’ve had some news out of the west. You’ve had more, I’m sure, but Vaneron’s losing. He’ll retreat back into the northwest soon, I imagine, put an end to his dreams of uniting the west. He’s out of gold, and near out of armies. His bid’s done.”

 

Essock sighed. She was right, of course. He’d thought that to himself before as well, but as before, hearing it said aloud made it worse. “Well, at least now I’ve an excuse for desertion, I suppose.”

 

“No,” Miselle said. “Ess, you cannot simply leave. Even if it’s only by courier, you must tell him if you don’t intend to return.”

 

“Aye?” Essock said, running his fingers through his hair and taking another drink of wine. “And if he refuses, calls upon my honor to aid him? What am I to say?”

 

“That your obligation to him does not extend to abandoning your family and tenants.”

 

“And my soldiers? They’re not the Lions. They’re decent folk, most of them.”

 

Miselle spread her arms. “I’ve no idea. Bring some of them back here to defend our lands, if you like, but I imagine most will have to sort things out for themselves.” Then she paused, and lowered her voice. “Has the war with the south been as bad as they say?”

 

“What have they said?”

 

“Lands burned, people burned, thousands starving, killing each other over the bodies of their families.”

 

He nodded.

 

“Aye. I thought so. You look half a corpse.” She took his hand again. “I’ll understand if you want to leave for Whitcrane tomorrow, but you need to rest when you return. You haven’t survived so many wars only to die of exhaustion.”

 

“You’ll manage without me, then?”

 

She gave him a tired smile. “Ess, another pair of hands is always useful, but I’ve managed without you for two years. I think I can suffer another month or two.”

 

“It suits you.”

 

“What, the armor?”

 

“Aye, and the sword, and the keep, and the command. And Dahlia. You two make a fine pair.”

 

“Thank you.” She squeezed his hand. “Ride back quickly, Ess. It’ll be good to have you home again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, when I said shitty two years, I meant shitty two years. I swear, I try to write porn and I end up with all this goddamn plot gumming up the works.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Essock arrives at the abbey and has a couple agonizing conversations. No smut this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst, really super-duper sketchy religious ethics conversations written by a person who's basically just trusting that The Sound of Music knew what it was talking about, rape mention, sex mention, denial mention, relationship talk that somehow manages to be even sketchier.

The ride to Whitcrane was long, but easy. The central lands had been stable for near five years now, and showed no signs of degeneration. People were rebuilding. Militias patrolled the roads, but they were hardly needed. No one tried to rob Essock in three weeks of travel, and there was always food to be had. It was a strange change from the wars in the west. By the time he reached the abbey, he had gained back a little weight, at least. It would be a long time before he was as strong as he had once been, but he was on his way.

 

The abbey was perched atop a rocky hill, overlooking a small town. It was fortified, as most abbeys were now, but there was still an old elegant simplicity to it. It was raining when Essock arrived, and the road up to the abbey gates was muddy. He dismounted when he reached the gate and knocked.

 

A monk opened the door after a time. He was short, old, and thickset, with a kind face, wearing a rough brown robe and sandals. 

 

“Essock, for Aiken of Whitcrane,” Essock said shortly.

 

The monk blinked at him for a moment before his face lit up in understanding, and he nodded. “Of course,” he said. “Please, enter. I’ll take your horse.” He held out a hand for the reins, and Essock was somewhat relieved to see that it was callused and dirty.

 

The abbey’s grounds were pleasant. Much of the space within the walls was dedicated to the growing of herbs and vegetables, though there was a small flower garden near the well. A few monks were weeding and pruning, and Essock saw a few youths who could only be future holy knights sparring in a muddy yard. It set him at ease, to his surprise, as much as anything could at the moment. His gut was still knotted up at the prospect of seeing Aiken.

 

After Essock helped the monk untack and stable his horse, he was led into one of the main buildings. “My office is just up this way,” the monk said, heading for a staircase.

 

“I’m here to see Aiken,” Essock said, trying not to be too rude about it. 

 

“Yes, I know, I sent for you. I’d like a word with you first, if you don’t mind.”

 

“You’re the abbot?” Essock said in surprise.

 

“Oh, yes,” the monk said. He turned around and gave Essock a small bow. “Abbot Renshire, at your service.”

 

Essock bowed hastily.  _ Shit.  _ “My apologies,” he said, trying to remember what honorific was appropriate for an abbot, and coming up with nothing. “Sir.”

 

“Renshire will do,” the abbot said calmly, continuing up the stairs. Essock followed uneasily.

 

The abbot’s office was small and cramped. A desk, two chairs, a bookcase, and a large potted plant had all somehow been squeezed in, along with more loose books and papers than Essock cared to guess at. The short man sat down behind his desk and gestured at the second chair. Essock settled into it carefully.

 

“So,” Renshire said. “You’ve made quite an impression on Aiken. And, given that you responded to my summons at all, I find it likely that he made an impression on you.”

 

“He did, sir.”

 

Renshire nodded. “He came here intending to renounce his vow of chastity, and his oath to the abbey. There was something about protecting the weak, but it was obvious to myself and the others who spoke to him that you were the primary cause.”

 

“I did not ask him to. I promise you that.” Essock’s unease was growing. Renshire had to know, then, what he’d done to Aiken, and what they’d done together.

 

“No? You do not wish for him to return to your lands?”

 

“I wish for him to be happy.” Essock hesitated. “If he can be happiest here, then he should remain here.”

 

“But you would prefer for him to be happiest with you.”

 

Essock looked up at Renshire. He couldn’t openly confess to this sort of sin in an abbey. But the abbot’s expression was not unkind in the slightest. Curious, yes, and almost understanding, even. Perhaps… “Yes. If it would make him happy.”

 

“Do you love him?”

 

Essock blinked. “Sir?”

 

“I’m not quite as much of an old fool as I may appear. Aiken has confessed to me much of what you two have said to each other. Do you love him?”

 

“I don’t know,” Essock said after a time. “I believe I hurt him more than I’ve ever hurt another, and we were only honest with each other on our last day together, I think. That is no foundation for love. But…” He shook his head slowly. “I feel more for him than I have ever felt for anyone, and I would like to love him.”

 

Renshire nodded and sat back in his chair, considering. A pile of scrolls teetered ominously on his desk. “You would like to love him.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“If you are the sort of man I believe you to be, and thus as inexperienced in these matters as I believe you to be, then that is a surprisingly wise thing to say.” The abbot scratched at his nearly-bald scalp and was silent for a while. Then he stood and made his way to the tall, narrow window of his office, carefully avoiding books on the way. “A holy life is not for everyone. That is not to say that not everyone can live a good life, but not all can be happy while dedicating their lives as thoroughly as a monk or priest or holy knight must. As abbot, it is my responsibility to tend to my flock, and that includes releasing those who would sooner roam free.”

 

“Sir?” Essock said, not sure of what he was hearing.

 

“Aiken seemed well-suited to knighthood,” Renshire said, turning back to Essock. “Pious, strong, kind, talented with a blade, and he had no difficulties in avoiding the temptations of the flesh. I believe that was why he took the vow of chastity, in part. I tend to discourage the swearing of that particular oath, but to him, it must have seemed a very easy way to honor God. I believe you were the first person ever to quicken him. When you violated him in that dungeon, he must have discovered the difficulty of keeping such a vow.”

 

_ Oh, God.  _ The abbot did know, must know everything, or nearly everything. Essock kept silent, waiting for the hammer to fall.

 

“He is not happy here, Essock. I do not know if he would be happier with you, but I would like him to be happy. I have known him since he was a child, as with many within these walls, and I have seen him grow from a good and happy boy to a good and unhappy man.” Renshire returned to his chair. “I summoned you here so that Aiken could renounce you. He is to meet with you alone, face temptation without aid, and reaffirm his commitment to his oath. Then his penance will be complete, and he will be free to reclaim his knighthood.”

 

Essock was unable to stop himself from sagging a little, but he quickly straightened. “I see.”

 

“I’m not at all sure that you do. I called you here so that Aiken might pass his final test and become a knight again. I believed that would make him happy, to be out in the world doing good, a pure knight once again. Since I wrote you, my certainty has faded. I do not know you, but I believe that, should Aiken decide that the path of the cloth is no longer his, you will help him to find a new one.”

 

Essock considered that for a while. “Sir, I am not certain I understand you.”

 

Renshire sighed. “You did not advance to this stage in your career by being dumb as a post, my child. I am trying to tell you that, should Aiken wish to leave this abbey with you, you both have my blessing.”

 

“But he doesn’t know that,” Essock said, trying to focus and not look as utterly confused and blindsided as he felt. “He still believes it to be a sin.”

 

“Should he decide that he would rather be with you, I will absolve him of all oaths and obligations. He will feel alone, I think, and without guidance, but he will be free to pursue whatever path he chooses. In the meantime, if he can overcome vows and years of obedience to the abbey for you, then he will have truly earned his freedom.” Renshire paused. “Shall I send someone to prepare him to see you?”

 

Essock felt his breath catch in his throat. “Yes.”

  
  
  


The room that a young girl in the roughspun tunic of a squire brought Essock to was bare stone, completely free of furnishings. Arched windows were set along the length of one wall with benches beneath them. Soft, gray light streamed through them, and rain streaked down the glass. Essock hardly heard the heavy wooden door close behind him. He was looking at the man sitting on one of the benches, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped.

 

Aiken was not in a monk’s robe, but neither was he armed and armored as a knight. He wore a simple, undyed shirt, dark chausses, and ragged, mud-spattered boots. He looked up as Essock entered, and his lips parted. “What happened to you, mercenary?” he asked after a moment. 

 

“War, stripling,” Essock said softly. He was tempted to ask the same. Aiken wasn’t gaunt, exactly—his shoulders were still broad, his arms well-muscled—but he had a sense of barrenness to him, as if everything deemed unnecessary had been carved away. His face was hard and weathered, his cheekbones stood out more than they had, the joints of his hands were more prominent, and even his hair had been shaved down to nearly nothing.

 

“You’ve—” Aiken swallowed audibly. “You’ve been in the west, then?” He seemed to be having difficulty looking at Essock’s face.

 

“Yes. Two years.” He was quiet for a time, waiting for Aiken to say more. When he didn’t, he spoke again, but what came out was not what he had intended to say. “You never wrote. I thought you were gone.”

 

“I know,” Aiken whispered. “I’m sorry.” His knuckles were white. “I thought that if I wrote, you would come.”

 

“Would that be so terrible?”

 

Aiken shook his head slowly. “I…”

 

“Aiken,” Essock said. He crossed the room and crouched in front of him, looking up at his face. “Aiken. Come with me. The abbot spoke with me. He said he’ll free you of your obligations, your oaths, if you wish it to be so.” He hadn’t planned for his voice to be so unsteady, and he hadn’t planned for his next words at all. “Please. Come with me. I’ll be with you, if you’ll have me.”

 

Aiken lifted his head and met Essock’s eyes. He looked tortured. He crushed his hands together even more tightly, hard enough that they trembled. “Oh, God,” he breathed. “Oh, God, I wasn’t ready.” 

 

“For what? For me?”

 

“For you. For the sight of you, for hearing your voice—” He cut himself off. “You were called here so that I could renounce you. If I resist you, tell you to leave, that I do not wish to see you again, if I do my best to forget you, then I become a knight again.”

 

“That’s so,” Essock said. “Do you want to be a knight? Would you be happy?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Would you be happier with me?” Essock hesitated, then took Aiken’s clasped hands in his own.

 

It was as if he had broken a dam. One moment, Aiken was nearly still, and the next, he was reaching for Essock’s face, pulling him close. There was a long moment of hesitation, when Essock’s arms were around him, and Aiken’s hands were cupping his face, their lips inches from each other, but then it was over, and they were kissing. There was need blooming in Essock’s gut, and desperate warmth and satisfaction in his chest.  _ Oh, God, oh, God, I’ve missed you. _

 

“I can’t stay,” Aiken whispered into his mouth between kisses. “Oh, God, I can’t stay here, I won’t be without you again. I— _ shit.  _ Shit.”

 

Essock pulled away in concern and studied him carefully. 

 

“God, this is foolishness.” He was shaking his head. “I knew you for, what, two, three months? You  _ did _ things to me, and I hardly spoke to you. And yet I came back to the abbey to renounce my vows for you, and now that I see you here, even after two years of committing myself to the Lord, I find myself leaping to try it again. What am I going to do? What in God’s name am I going to do? God, I cannot give up knighthood, it’s all I’ve wanted since I was a boy.” There was a touch of panic crawling into his voice. “Without the oaths, without the abbey, what is there? I’ve no skill in aught else.”

 

Essock shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve the same concern, stripling. My employment’s come near to an end, and I…” He wondered how to tell a holy knight that he woke sweating and screaming most nights, sure that the corpses he’d eaten were going to come crawling back out of his throat and strangle him. “I’ve had my fill of war. The estate needs gold to survive, so I must find gold.” He shrugged. “There must be something we can do.”

 

“You miss my point,” Aiken said irritably. “I mean I’ve no guidance without the abbey, no direction. You’ve lands and a wife you must provide for. You know what goal you must achieve. I’ve naught but myself.”

 

“Yourself, and me, and faith, and a wish to do good in the world. You’ve all the direction you need.” 

 

Aiken looked at him for a moment. “A wish to do good in the world,” he said slowly. “Do you have a wish to do good in the world, as well?”

 

Essock considered. “I believe so,” he said after a pause. “But I’ve no more idea what to do with it than you have.”

 

Aiken nodded. “A shared goal.” He held Essock’s gaze. “Is it  _ enough?” _

 

Essock looked back at him. “I don’t know,” he said softly. “But I can promise you, if it isn’t, I will find you something that is. You will not be lost in this world. I owe you at least that.”

 

“Yes,” Aiken said quietly. “That you do.”

 

“Aiken.” Essock hesitated. “I must… that is, I will understand if you find that it’s not me you want, but freedom, and someone to take pleasure with. I think I introduced you to it, and perhaps you feel an affection for that, but there are other men who will lie with you, and a world of places that would welcome a man of sword and principle.”

 

“Aye, I know.” Aiken shrugged a little, and a touch of color appeared in his cheeks. He glanced away. “My thinking ran in much the same vein. I’ve lain with a few men since you. One on the road, and there’s several here that like to be touched by another man.”

 

“You’ve been—” Essock blinked, trying to understand. “You’ve been breaking your vow regardless?”

 

Aiken shook his head. “Once. On the road, when I still intended to renounce. Since then, I—” The flush darkened. “The other times, I’ve refrained from spilling myself.”

 

“And that… is no mark against you?” Essock said tentatively.

 

“I’ve taken no vow against inspiring lust in another.” He looked uncomfortable. “But it was not with them as it was with you. You were different. When we were laying together, at your estate, the feelings were different.” He put a hand on Essock’s shoulder, and closed his eyes for a moment, suppressing something. “You’ve my gratitude for your caution, and should I begin to feel that what is between us is not what I think it may be, I make no promise to stay, but as it stands, I believe that it is worth the attempt, at least.”

 

Essock gripped the hand that was resting on his shoulder. “Stripling.” He tried to put as much quiet affection as he could into it, but he was unsure as to the extent of his success. Then he asked, “What made you decide to stay here?”

 

Aiken sighed. “This place is—was my life for a long time. I meant to renounce, I truly did, until I arrived at the gate. When I saw the abbey, all the people in it…” He shook his head. “It’s safe here, for one. As a knight, you see only the worst of what the world has to offer. War, butchery, plague. None of that penetrates these walls. And… I dedicated my life to God when I was a child. A life of purity, aiding the weak, doing His will. Returning here, seeing all those who still do His good work… it  made whatever small mortal happiness I could achieve outside seem absurd.”

 

“Do you still…”

 

“No.” Aiken’s free hand touched Essock’s face. “No. This place is, after all, only a place, and I am only a man. Caring for you, wanting to live outside the bounds of a holy knight—these things do not mean that my love for God is diminished. I can still serve Him, somehow, through thought and action. Mortals make errors, and, seeing you again, I remember that my oath was one. I am remedying it. Knight, monk, priest… worldly titles. I can still do good without them, surely.”

 

Essock let his eyes close for a moment, reveling in the hand against his cheek. It was strong and callused, rougher than it had been when he had last felt it, but it brought the same warmth and comfort. 

 

Aiken took a deep breath, and Essock looked up at him. He looked like a man preparing for battle. “No purpose in delaying.”

 

“Take your time,” Essock urged. “It’s a momentous thing.”

 

“Nay, I—” He looked pained. “I think I’ve proven that my will wavers on this matter. Not as fickle and changeable as spring weather, perhaps, but near enough. Best to have it over and done with, before I can decide the other way again.” He got to his feet and pulled Essock up with him. “You need make no arguments on my behalf, but… you’ll stand with me?”

 

“Always,” Essock said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can play "Climb Every Mountain" in the background if you want, I don't mind.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Essock and Aiken leave Whitcrane and head west. Drama ensues. No smut this chapter, either. I swear we're getting there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst (LOTS), cuddling, PTSD, horror, blood, gore, copious quantities of guilt, past cannibalism, questionable discussion of ethics.
> 
> The horror/gore element here is much more gory and horror-y than I usually write, and involves lots of body horror. Please proceed with caution.

Aiken did well, Essock thought, until the abbey gate closed behind them. With that thud of wood on stone, he froze, standing there with his horse’s reins in one hand, face pale, jaw clenched, eyes straight ahead. Essock reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re well,” he said softly. “You’re well, stripling.”

 

Aiken gave a sharp, controlled nod, put a foot in a stirrup, and swung up into the saddle. “Westward?” His voice was flat.

 

“Westward,” Essock agreed, mounting his own horse. 

 

The rain had dropped off to a steady drizzle by the time they stopped for the night. Essock pitched the tent under the shelter of a rocky overhang and kept an eye on Aiken, who was making a fire. The once-knight had relaxed more as they put distance between themselves and the abbey, but he’d still hardly said a word, and he looked as though someone had died.

 

After a slim supper of dried fruit and travel biscuits, Essock moved to sit next to him. He didn’t want to intrude on the man’s private suffering, but he wanted to be well within reach should Aiken no longer wish to keep it private. He was beginning to doze off by the time Aiken gave a small sigh and leaned over to rest on him. He resisted the urge to shake himself awake and instead put his arm around the other man and hold him gently close, resolving that no position was too uncomfortable.

 

It did eventually grow too uncomfortable, and Essock had to squeeze Aiken gently to wake him up before getting stiffly to his feet. “Come on, stripling.” He let his hand flow over the man’s neck and shoulder in careful warning before helping him up and leading him to the tent. He stripped out of his plate, but left the gambeson on for warmth, before lying down on the rug of sheepskin that he’d slept on during campaigns for years.

 

Aiken pulled off his boots and crawled into the tent alongside him. He’d left his armor at the abbey, as it was etched with both the cross and the sigil of Whitcrane, but he’d kept his cloak, and he shed that before sliding in to lie next to Essock and pulling the blanket over them both.

 

Essock was surprised when Aiken came up close, pressing against him and resting his head on Essock’s outstretched arm, but a soft warmth and contentment rose up in him in response, and he thought his heart might burst with that feeling of  _ rightness  _ that he remembered from embracing Aiken before. They fit well together, and their bodies warmed each other, and Essock couldn’t stop himself from lowering his head to plant a soft kiss on Aiken’s head. Aiken gave a low, tired, contented sigh, and Essock wondered if it was possible to die from rightness.

 

He woke in the night with an ache in his belly and Aiken’s warm arms wrapped around him. There was also a leg draped across his, and a head resting on his chest. He waited patiently for the gut-ache to go away, but after a time, it became clear that it was only worsening. He swore mentally and, with a great deal of effort and carefully-applied skill, managed to disentangle himself without waking Aiken. He crawled out of the tent and got to his feet, hoping that a short walk, a drink of water, and maybe a piss would help.

 

The fire was out. He blinked at that. It should have lasted through the night. No matter, he supposed. It wasn’t such a cold night, and the rain had stopped, leaving the moon to come out and provide enough light to see by. He took himself out of his breeches and relieved himself against a tree. Then he got an odd feeling of unrest. His gut feelings had rarely steered him wrong, and he listened to them now, turning around sharply and putting himself hastily away.

 

He froze halfway through the motion when he saw that he was surrounded.

 

Shapes that his tired mind had taken for bushes, logs, and stones were resolving themselves into people, getting to their feet and standing still,  _ looking  _ at him.

 

Essock slowly raised his hands, demonstrating that he’d left his sword in the tent. “I’m unarmed,” he said, endeavouring to keep his voice calm. God, his stomach was getting worse. “And you’ll find no valuables. Some food, if you’re in need, but nothing worth violence.”

 

The people didn’t move.

 

He peered closer, trying to make them out in the moonlight. They didn’t look like bandits. There were men and women, most in nightclothes. That was odd. There were some in armor, though. They all looked thin and starved. Perhaps they did need food.  _ Shit,  _ his gut. There couldn’t have been anything wrong with the fruit, surely. Was the water here befouled?

 

Then they began to approach. Slowly, almost casually, but they were all still  _ looking  _ at him, never taking their eyes from him. He saw in passing that many had fingers blackened by frostbite. Where had they found cold enough for that, this far east, at this time of year?

 

Oh, God, they weren’t stopping. They had no weapons that he could see, but there was something about them that was bringing a cold dread into him, and without a sword, without armor, there were too many to fight. He spun toward the tent to yell for Aiken to run, but doubled over on the way.

 

_ Oh Holy God,  _ his stomach. He clutched at it, his head nearly at his knees.  _ Shit!  _ He couldn’t speak through the pain, couldn’t walk, could only sink slowly to his knees and marvel that he was still alive with what felt like his insides trying to rip themselves apart,  _ oh God oh God oh God.  _ He fell on his side and curled up like a child, hands on his belly, and was moaning in pain when he felt something move.

 

At first he thought he had gone mad, but then it happened again, more insistently, and he managed to unbuckle his gambeson and pull up his tunic.

 

He was not at all certain he had not gone mad.  _ Can’t be real can’t be real can’t be real oh God can’t be real.  _ The flesh of his stomach was  _ bubbling  _ outward, as if his guts were boiling, oh,  _ God, swelling,  _ and with each sick, freakish pulse the agony grew. He felt something rupture inside of him, accompanied by his stomach surging outward, and he slammed himself onto his back with a scream. 

 

There were no words. God, he was  _ breaking,  _ his body destroying itself, there was blood in his lungs and the pain was spreading to his chest but he still had to scream, hands clawing uselessly as he tried to open himself up before whatever was doing this could do the job for him. He was seizing, no control over himself,  _ oh God oh God oh God,  _ and then horrifyingly cold hands gripped his arms and legs and pulled them away from his stomach.

 

Oh, God,  _ burning, burning, burning, _ too cold, the cold spreading through him to make his bones light up in agony, and more hands grabbing him,  _ oh God  _ there was  _ ice  _ spreading from wherever the hands touched, and the people were leaning over him, thick cold dark liquid dripping clotted from their mouths, and his belly was going to burst, there was nothing whole left inside him.

 

Something drew its cold fingers across his belly, but  _ oh God from the inside. _

 

Then it ripped its way out of him at long last, small hands at last breaking through the thinned and stretched and tortured skin and muscle of his stomach,  _ rending,  _ loosing a tide of blood and fluids, and he was making sounds that he had never heard even from the most horribly wounded people he had ever seen, and the child was unfurling herself from the ruins of his guts,  _ standing up  _ inside him, her small feet on either side of his spine, and he was  _ still alive.  _

 

She turned to face him, and he saw her face, and knew it. The noise he made was inhuman, but he found no inhuman strength, no reserves that would help him escape as she crouched down and stretched a dripping hand toward his face.

 

“Mercenary! Mercenary!  _ Ess!” _

 

Essock ripped his arms free of the hands restraining him and scrabbled at his stomach, desperate to shove the  _ thing  _ away and shovel his guts back in if he could in a mad last-ditch effort to survive. Then his fingers touched his gambeson and tunic, and, beneath them, flat, unbroken skin, drenched in sweat, and he went boneless.

 

“Ess,” a voice said next to his ear. A hand, blessedly warm, pressed against his cheek in the dark, and soft lips touched his. “Ess. All’s well, Ess. I’m here, all’s well.” The voice broke halfway through, and the hand stroked his cheek. “All’s well.”

 

A soft whimper broke out of Essock’s throat. He took Aiken’s hand and tried not to make any further sounds. God, a grown man, reduced to tears by nothing more than a foolish dream.  _ Foolish dream, foolish dream, no sense in it, oh, God. _

 

_ “Ess.”  _ Aiken made his name comfort and pity and prayer in one. “No fear, Ess.” He pressed himself up against Essock’s chest, and reached down to touch the hand that was still expecting to find a great spurting cavity in his stomach, and gently stilled the probing fingers, squeezing them, fingers rubbing and spreading warmth. “You’re whole, you’re safe.”

 

“Thank you,” Essock whispered, when he was able to form words again. “Thank you.”

 

“No fear.” Lips touched his again. “No fear, you’re with me.”

 

“Aiken.” Essock caught the man’s jaw and held him away before the once-knight could befoul himself again. Oh, God, what’d he done? Raped a man, corrupted him, even come back to tear him from a good and holy life, and not even _ told  _ him what a horror he really was. Oh, God, he was despicable. “Aiken, in the west, in the winter, the southerners had burned much of the harvest, and it was bitter cold, and there was no grain, but so many dead—”

 

“Ess.” Aiken’s warm, rough hand covered his mouth. “Ess, news of the western wars did reach as far as Whitcrane. I know of the foulness done in the winter, mercenary.” He kissed Essock’s forehead, keeping his hand firmly in place. “I know what was done, what you all did. You need not speak of it.”

 

Essock pulled the hand away from his lips. “I ate the flesh of a dead child. A little girl, frozen to death.” He was shaking. “Oh, God, I shouldn’t’ve come east. I _touched_ you. God, you worried so over your imagined sin, and now you’ve dirtied yourself with—”

 

“Ess, for the sake of God’s own son, be silent.” Essock felt him sit up in the dark. There was anger in his voice. “What do you seek? Should I give you penance? Would that rest your soul? Would it undo your sin? Would your spirits be bloody lifted if I instructed you to endure a thousand lashes? Would the child breathe again?” He gripped Essock’s hand, hard. “There’s naught on God’s green earth that will undo what’s been done. You and your mercenaries ate the bodies of the dead rather than starve. I knew it before you ever came to the abbey. Foul, yes, sick, yes, nothing that anyone in the world should ever lower themselves to. But there’s no penance that will restore those dead. You do no good in agonizing over it. All there is for you to do is see that it never happens again, when there is anything in your power that might stop it.”

 

Essock said nothing.

 

Aiken lay back down and turned onto his side to face Essock. He took one of Essock’s hands and clasped it to his chest. “I charge you, Essock. You’ve fought in wars all your life. I charge you now to end their horrors wherever you can. That is your penance. No longer a mercenary, but one who undoes their work.” He squeezed the hand, and Essock squeezed back. 

 

Then he ran a hand down Essock’s face and chest. “God, you’re skin and bones. You can’t have eaten too many corpses.” Essock shuddered beneath his hand, and he winced. “Sorry. I thought… you’ve my apologies.”

 

“No harm.” Essock pulled closer and pressed his forehead to Aiken’s. “Thank you, stripling.”

 

“And you,” Aiken said, nuzzling against him. “I never expected you to speak of it, and would not have asked it of you, but it must have taken a great deal of courage to tell me, when you thought I’d leave you for it.”

 

“I had to. I’ve done many foul things in my life. You already knew one of the foulest, but now you know both.”

 

“You’ve done good in your life as well, as it happens.” Aiken’s hand touched his face again. “And now you can do more. I’ll help you as I can.”

 

It was a childish thing, but the question escaped Essock before he could bite it back. “Will it be enough?”

 

Aiken was silent for a time. Then he said, slowly, thoughtfully, “I do not believe that any action can ever cancel out another. Nothing can be… made up for, in truth. But one can try to make their good works outnumber the evil, I think, and take care to act always with good intent. You will never not have violated me, never not have consumed the flesh of another, as I will never not have broken vows, never not have killed, but it need not be these things that we are remembered for.”

 

Essock considered. Then he said, “You’d’ve made a fair priest. Good at speeches.”

 

Aiken snorted and pulled him closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about all the dark and gross and scary stuff here. The next chapter is the last one, and will hopefully make up for it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Essock and Aiken continue west and have a pleasant evening together. Here there be smut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stripping, bit of angst, past flagellation, scars, past sort of self-harm, oral, anal fingering, anal sex, teasing, dirty talk, begging, bathing, as close to a happy ending as one could reasonably expect.

Three days later, they found a cave. It was small and dry, with a fairly flat floor, so they tied the horses outside and set up the tent inside, even though night was an hour away. Aiken built a fire outside in a sandy area while Essock watched, munching on some bread they’d picked up in a village the day before. He would have helped, but Aiken seemed to enjoy this part of the evening ritual they were establishing.

 

Essock fished out his ceramic cooking pot and poured wine into it before pushing it close to the fire. The wine was from the abbey—they had their own vineyard, which produced a dark, woody vintage, and Abbot Renshire had been good enough to provide them with a few skins of it. Essock had learned that Aiken liked his wine mulled with honey, and was already wondering how one could construct an apiary. How did anyone convince bees to live in a particular place?

 

It was a fine spring evening. The sun was low in the sky, and it caught the leaves of the linden trees well. It also highlighted Aiken’s cheekbones and jaw in a way that made Essock feel that he hadn’t been properly appreciating them until that moment, and he settled comfortably against the fallen log he was leaning on, content to continue watching.

 

Aiken came over and sat down eventually, and Essock passed him the bread and pulled a wooden dipper out of his pack. The wine was quite hot, and he had to blow on it for a time before he could drink. It wasn’t bad, really. Certainly better than the wine his estate produced. Or had produced. He hadn’t thought to check whether any of the vines had survived two years of banditry, but he rather doubted it.

 

When the bread was gone, and the wine that had gone undrunk had been removed from the fire to cool and be emptied back into the skin, Aiken reached over and kissed him, hard. Essock froze in blank surprise for a moment before returning it, reaching to wrap his arms around the other man. Then he paused. “You’re sure?”

 

“Ess,” Aiken said impatiently, “if I’ve left the only real stability I’ve ever known or seen in this world for you, only to find that you’ve no intention of pleasuring me, I am going to be very seriously put out.”

 

Essock chuckled. “All right, that’s fair enough.”

 

And just like that, Aiken was  _ on  _ him, unbuckling straps, undoing laces, dropping plates carelessly to the ground, pushing the gambeson off of his shoulders, then undoing the laces of the shirt and spreading it open. He paused when he could see Essock’s bare torso, and the look in his eyes, of absolute lust, made Essock’s cock jump. Then he was leaning forward and pushing the shirt further off and kissing every inch of bare skin he could reach. “God,” he muttered against skin. “It’s been far too long.”

 

Essock ran his hands over Aiken’s head and began working his way down over a strong back, relearning the shape of shoulder blade and spine, gripping at the man’s waist, loving the feeling of solid, powerful flesh beneath his fingers. Then he went further down, under Aiken’s belt, beneath his breeches, and groaned.  _ Oh God, I’d forgotten exactly how lovely his ass is. _ It was less full than it had been, but it was still utterly perfect. Stubble scraped his chest as a mouth sucked at his nipple, and he groaned again, louder. “You said you’ve been touching men?” he breathed. “Learn anything interesting?”

 

He felt more than saw the grin as Aiken’s teeth brushed the skin of his ribs. “I learned that men  _ love  _ what my mouth can do to their cocks.”

 

“Oh, God, I could have told you that,” Essock said, pulling Aiken’s shirt over his head. “I’ve vivid memories of your mouth, stripling.” He pulled him close and kissed him. “Go on, I want to see all of you.”

 

Aiken obliged and got to his feet. He turned away to unbuckle his belt and drop his chausses and breeches, and his back caught some of the last of the light. Essock’s breath caught as he was in the midst of getting his own boots off, and Aiken flinched and made to follow his gaze, looking toward the woods, seeking a threat. Then he shrugged, understanding. “It’s not so terrible as it looks.”

 

“It looks like you’d hardly any skin left when they were finished with you.”

 

“That’s so,” Aiken said, getting his chausses off and tossing them over the log, “but they didn’t touch much more than skin. Many lashes, but light ones.”

 

“How many?”

 

Aiken paused. “One hundred fifty.”

 

_ “God’s blood, _ stripling. To what end?”

 

The pause was longer this time. “I requested it.”

 

“You—” Essock got to his feet with one boot still on and closed the distance between them quickly, pulling him close. “God, you know you deserved no such thing.”

 

Aiken shook his head with a frown, but returned the embrace. “I thought to beat you out of me. Foolish, I suppose. God knows you cling to a man’s mind like a barnacle.” 

 

“I’ve every intention to keep clinging. It’ll take a full careening to scrape me off. Unless you wish me gone,” he added hastily.

 

“As I’ve said, I appreciate your caution.” Aiken pressed forward, pushing himself against Essock’s groin. “But I intend to lie with you tonight, at the very least, and if you’ll not get a bloody move on—” 

 

Essock grinned. “Using me for your baser needs, are you?” He leaned in for a kiss, took Aiken by the waist, and steered him toward the cave.

 

“If you’ve an objection,” Aiken breathed into his mouth, “I’ve no doubt I could find another who’d be more appreciative of some of my more private attributes.” He laughed as Essock pushed him down onto the sheepskins.

 

Essock dropped between Aiken’s knees and began unlacing the breeches that stood between him and the cock tenting them. When he freed it at last, Aiken sighed happily, and then moaned when it was immediately encased by a warm, wet mouth.

 

“Miss it, Ess?” Aiken said with a broad smile. He propped himself up on his elbows to get a better look, then reached down with one hand and wound his fingers through Essock’s hair. “Oh, God in Heaven, you have.”

 

Essock withdrew and began kissing and licking the skin around the man’s cock, up his stomach to his navel, and then back down to his balls and further, taking care to spare many kisses to the cock itself. “And you’ve missed spilling yourself, I daresay.” He took the head into his mouth again and gave a quick suck. “You’d only just learned what it could properly be, and then you had to spend two years without it. And you sucked other men off, had to see them release.” He drew a long, slow lick from base to tip. “Were you hard while you did it?”

 

“Oh, aye.” Aiken’s voice had gone breathy. “Kept my clothes on, breeches done up tight, the better to ward off the temptation to finish myself, but kneeling there, between a naked man’s legs, touching him, listening to him breathe and moan… of course I was hard. And tasting him finish— _ God, do that again— _ you think I wasn’t thinking of how it would feel? Think I wasn’t remembering when you brought me off with your mouth? How badly I wanted to do it again?”

 

Essock had about as much of Aiken’s cock in his mouth as he could handle, and was using his hand to make up the difference, but he pulled off for that. “Shall I finish you like this, then, stripling?” he asked, letting himself go deep and rumbly. “You’ve earned the pleasure, surely.”

 

Aiken’s hand left Essock’s hair and moved to stroke his cheek. “No. I do believe I’d like to spill myself in a rather more private part of you.”

 

Essock blinked in surprise, but his cock made its decision well before the rest of him had even taken Aiken’s meaning. He sat up and unbuttoned his breeches, and then Aiken was helping him get them off, and then getting the shirt all the way off, and kissing him and running his hands all over, fingers quickly remembering. 

 

“Look at you,” Aiken breathed, taking his cock in hand, and then, thrillingly, adding his own cock and squeezing them together. “Look how excited you are. How many men have you fucked since me, then?”

 

“Oh, God,” Essock whispered. The feel of Aiken against him was… Oh, he’d been asked a question. “None.”

 

Aiken stopped abruptly and looked up at him, his voice suddenly back to its ordinary pitch. “What?”

 

Essock pushed up against him, trying to convince the hand to keep doing the wonderful things it had been doing. “It was only my hand. It was… a difficult time. If we weren’t farming or warring, we were trying not to freeze or starve. And there was rarely a free moment, with all the preparations to see to. There was no time.”

 

Aiken was still staring at him. “There’s a change. I thought you had to sate yourself often.”

 

Essock shrugged, and gave up on moving too much. “I hardly noticed, in truth. I feel as though I’ve felt nothing but exhaustion for two years. If I could stay awake long enough in bed to reach down my breeches, aye, I touched myself, but that was not so often.”

 

“And if you could not stay asleep?” 

 

Essock met his eyes at that. Aiken was looking at him with some mix of sympathy and pity. “Don’t speak of that,” he said, much more harshly than he’d intended. He caught himself, shamed. “I’m sorry.”

 

“Nay, no harm,” Aiken said. He leaned in and kissed Essock. “No harm.” He smiled a little. “God, a foul time to bring that up, when by all rights I ought to be telling you how  _ lovely  _ you are.” He kissed him again, and began to move his hand, chuckling when Essock made an undignified noise and shoved his hips forward into the sweet friction. “And you are lovely. Look at you, here, and here…” 

 

His other hand was probing Essock’s body, moving over his shoulders and back, while his mouth slipped away from Essock’s lips and began to work its way down his jaw and throat and collarbones and chest. “Here… and also here, and here…” With each word, he pressed and kissed, working his way ever further down. Then he moved his thumb and pressed it to the head of Essock’s cock, rubbing in tiny circles as Essock shuddered against him. “And here, naturally.”

 

His hand glided over Essock’s ass, squeezed appreciatively, and then slid between, probing, touching his entrance. “And here. Oh, God, here.” He gently pushed him down against the sheepskins and positioned himself, leaning forward to kiss Essock while he slipped a finger inside and began to work it in, slowly, slowly. “Does that please you, Ess?”

 

“Oh, God,” Essock muttered. He pushed his hips down onto the finger, wanting more, needing more. “Oh, God, yes, that pleases me.” He let his own fingers dig into Aiken’s back. “Go on, more,  _ more.”  _

 

“Slowly, Ess,” Aiken breathed. “I’ve learned that, at least. I’ve work to do, the finest, most pleasurable work, and I’ll not rush its progress.” He kept working that single finger, slowly,  _ torturously  _ slowly, resisting all of Essock’s attempt to speed the process. In, out, a little further in, then retreating, then curling ever so gently, never giving  _ enough.  _

 

“Go  _ on,”  _ Essock panted. His hands were shaky on Aiken’s back, their movements loose and uncontrolled, without thought. “Go on, stripling, more, go on, I’ve a need.”

 

“In time.” Aiken was grinning, rubbing himself gently against Essock’s thigh. He was kissing and licking at his chest, only occasionally blessing a nipple with sweet heat and touch, and still not increasing his pace in the slightest, not adding a finger, only gently rubbing and sliding and massaging, and it was driving Essock mad.

 

_ “Please.”  _ Essock ground himself against Aiken’s stomach, straining for more movement against his cock. “God’s blood, stripling,  _ more,  _ what’s stopping you?”

 

“Good God, Ess, can you not guess?” He breathed a short, warm laugh against the place between Essock’s collarbones. “I love seeing you like this.  _ Desperate.  _ You’d do anything for more at this moment, and yet you’ll not touch yourself, not make the slightest move against me. That’s as it should be, and I believe there’s no sight or sound on this earth that could give me greater pleasure.”

 

Essock moaned without meaning to. 

 

“Oh,” Aiken said. He sounded delighted. “You agree, don’t you?  _ God.  _ I confess I didn’t expect that.” He kissed Essock’s lips again, swallowing his moan, letting it drag on and on and on. His fingers drove through Essock’s hair, keeping him close. “But it’s been quite a long time for both of us. Perhaps later, once we’ve sated ourselves, I’ll let this go on as long as it should. Until you’re near mindless with need, begging me to do anything, anything at all to let you spill yourself.” He smiled a little, and let his teeth gently scrape Essock’s lower lip. “I confess it. I’ve some desire for vengeance.” The smile faded. “But I’ll not hurt you. And I’ll not let you hurt me again.”

 

_ “Never,”  _ Essock said vehemently. That was more than enough to distract him from his cock, and the cock against his leg, and the finger in his ass. “Aiken, stripling, never again. On pain of death.”

 

Aiken nodded. “I know.” He kept eye contact, looking grim, for another few seconds before sighing with a small smile. “God. I seem to have become utterly incapable of lovetalk.”

 

Essock smiled back. “You’re out of practice, stripling.” The finger inside him began to move again, and he shuddered. “Go on, then,” he breathed. “You’ll learn by doing, I’m sure.”

 

“Excellent point.” Aiken was moving his hips again, grinding himself against Essock’s thigh. “You’re right, I’m certain.” His voice was getting lower. “I’ll improve over time, if I practice telling you how lovely you are. How sensitive you are, in so many places. I wonder how long it may take me to learn them well, that I can touch you only a few times and you’ll be ready for me. A touch  _ here,  _ perhaps, or  _ here…  _ and you’ll be ready to be fucked. Does that excite you, Ess?”

 

“It frightens me a little, truth be told,” Essock admitted.

 

“Ah. See, I need practice. Go on, guide me a little, help me find the proper words for you.”

 

Essock’s mind seemed to immediately empty itself of all possible words and combinations thereof. He stared blankly at the canvas of the tent, wondering where they’d all suddenly gone.

 

“Go on,” Aiken whispered against his throat. “Go on, what stirs you?” His hips stuttered a little against Essock’s thigh, and there was a slow, shaky intake of breath.

 

“Tell me what you’re feeling,” Essock said, struck by sudden inspiration. “Tell me how hard you are, how much heat there is between your legs, what it’s doing to you, having me here beneath you…”

 

“Ahh,” Aiken said, pleased. He considered for a moment. “Well, no difficulty there, I imagine. I assure you, Ess, I find myself exceedingly hard.” He pressed himself more firmly against Essock’s leg for emphasis. “Dripping, in truth. It’s been a terribly long time. There’s warmth all through me, and it’s hot and sticky and near unbearable.” He took another trembling breath, and Essock felt his cock twitch at the sound. “I’ve felt it many times since I left you, true, but this time, it’s all the greater. I know I’ll be able to finish, and I know I’ll do it inside you. Inside this part of you, God, so soft and hot and absolutely desperate for more.” 

 

He finally, finally slipped a second finger in, and Essock made a sound that embarrassed him. Aiken only chuckled, rich and deep. “Knowing you want me, knowing you need me, that’s taking its toll as well. I’m a touch worried, in truth. I want you to spill yourself with only my cock to push you over the edge, but I fear that once I’m in you, finally inside, with you warm and tight around me, making those  _ perfect  _ fucking noises, I’ll finish far too quickly.”

 

“I don’t mind,” Essock blurted. “God, I don’t mind in the fucking slightest. I want you to lose yourself in me.” He groaned as the fingers stretched him. “I want you to seat yourself inside me, and find that there’s nothing on this earth that could prevent you from losing control, fucking hard, fast, nothing on your mind but finishing yourself, me hot around you, beneath you, every noise and move I make only serving to push you further—”

 

A blessed third finger pushed into him, and his answering cry was nearly a yell.  _ “God!  _ God, yes, come  _ on—” _

 

Aiken’s voice was strained. “I’m gladdened to hear it, Ess, for it’s likely what you’ll receive. Oh, God. Sooner rather than later, I suspect.”

 

_ “Good,”  _ Essock hissed. “Go  _ on,  _ stripling, go on, get in me, I’m ready, I’ve been ready, I need you inside—”

 

Aiken pushed into him all in one harsh stroke, with the force of a battering ram, pushing Essock back a few inches. He moaned loudly. “Shit! Shit, you’ll get it, then, Ess. Do you like that, then? My cock in you? Do you feel full? Your desperate hole filled at last, as it should be?”

 

“Yes,” Essock panted.  _ Oh, God, _ full, yes, but— “More, stripling, more, God, please, more, go on, fuck me, fuck me,  _ fuck me, please—” _

 

Then Aiken was moving. His first couple of strokes were slow, shaky, clearly trying to pace himself, but he cast that aside quickly, and it wasn’t long before he was rutting like an animal, his body pressed against Essock’s, who was crying out with the joy of being taken and with the sweat and heat and friction on his own cock, trapped between their bellies. He spoke a little at first, telling Essock in quick, harsh groans how hot and soft and gloriously tight he was, but that faded until all that left his lips were gasps and moans and noises of sharp, agonizing need.

 

Essock meant to pleasure Aiken with his hands, to seek out all the sensitive places he remembered, but in the end it was all he could do not to tear up the man’s back too badly. His hands seemed near out of his control, and his legs were no better, and he was writhing beneath Aiken, chest heaving, dripping with sweat, balls pulled up tight.  _ Oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God more now yes yes yes yes yes yes—  _

 

He spilled himself between their bodies with a groan.

 

Aiken’s answering noise was nothing short of flawless, and it seemed only moments later when he slammed himself in deep and froze, mouth open in a silent scream that faded into a moan as he lowered himself down, trembling.

 

When they’d both gotten their breath back a little, Essock found Aiken’s mouth and kissed it thoroughly. He ran his hands over the man’s back gently, wincing at the scratches he’d left. “Sorry,” he breathed. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

 

“Oh, God,” Aiken mumbled. “No worry there, Ess. You can do anything you like with your nails if you can make me spill like that.”

 

Essock let his head thud back against the sheepskins, too exhausted to respond.

 

Aiken kissed his neck, pulled free, with a little shudder at Essock’s low moan, and dropped himself off to the side. “God.”

 

Essock managed to move over a little and press against him, not minding the heat.

 

“Oh, God, best not do that,” Aiken sighed. “The wine’s surely cool by now, I ought to put it back.”

 

“Fuck the wine,” Essock mumbled. He pushed his head over until he found skin and kissed it, not knowing or caring where it was. “Doesn’t smell like rain.”

 

“Lazy bastard,” Aiken said affectionately. He ran his fingers through Essock’s sweaty hair. “You’d let bird and beast pollute the abbey vintage.” He sat up. “Go on. We can wash up. Don’t mistake me, I _love—”_ His voice dropped to a low purring rumble that made Essock’s lips part. “I _love_ that you spilled yourself so messily, so beautiful and warm and sticky for me, but I’d still like to wash.”

 

Essock sighed and stretched a little. “For you, stripling.”

 

They made their way out of the cave, loose and tired, not bothering with clothing, though the night air was cool. Essock left Aiken to get the wine, and headed down to a small stream nearby. There was seed making its way down his leg, and now that he was up and moving, he wanted it cleaned up. He found a pool, its sandy bottom dotted with smooth, rounded stones, and waded in. It was cold, but he didn’t mind. It soothed his tired muscles, and when he plunged his head under, it freshened his eyes and relaxed him. He lifted his head after a moment and took a deep breath of sweet air.

 

Aiken joined him just as he was bringing a cupped hand of water up to his ass to rinse away some of the come. Essock winced a little, embarrassed.

 

“What?” Aiken said with a smile in his voice, pressing himself up against Essock’s back. “Don’t fancy keeping me in you all night, and all day tomorrow?” He nipped affectionately at Essock’s shoulder. “Go on, I’ll get it for you.” He pushed him a little deeper into the pool for easier access, and began cleaning. He leaned forward to rest his head against Essock’s neck and sighed comfortably as he washed away sweat and seed. 

 

Afterward, they helped each other get at their backs, and then rested comfortably on a large rock for a time. It was a beautiful night, starry, with a bright moon, and not too chilly. Essock found himself growing cold with wet skin, but leaning up against Aiken made it entirely bearable. 

 

“I think we’ll be all right, Ess,” Aiken murmured after a long, comfortable silence. “I cannot say whether it will last forever, but I think that for a while, at least, we will be all right.”

 

Essock gave a slow, tired nod. “Aye. I believe we will.” He kissed Aiken gently, still taken with quiet wonder at the sheer easy, contented rightness of it all. Then he stood, and offered Aiken a hand. “Come on, then, stripling. We’ve a long road to go yet.”

 

Aiken smiled, took his hand, and followed him back to camp to dry by the fire and sleep until the dawn came, pale and full of promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was fun. Thanks for the patience, and thanks so much for all your excellent comments, I've really appreciated them, and I hope you've enjoyed this story to its end.


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